Playthings 2025
by Christine Gallagher
Acrylic on Canvas
|
h 121 x w 92 x d 4 cm h 47.6 x w 36.2 x d 1.6 in |
studio visits welcome
Promotion code:
Secure payments.
Interest-free installments available at checkout.
Buy now, pay later with 
Pay in 3 and Pay in 4.
Description
Playthings explores the emotional and symbolic weight of discarded objects, focusing on dolls that once represented innocence, care, and belonging. Now cast aside, these figures become metaphors for social invisibility and unresolved memory. Their intact but neglected forms speak to experiences of abandonment without overt damage—emphasizing quiet endurance over dramatic trauma.
The stenciled floral background evokes domestic space, cultural nostalgia, and generational repetition. This layered surface contrasts the sterile stillness of the dolls, creating tension between comfort and discomfort, past and present.
This painting forms part of an ongoing body of work examining memory, class, neurodivergence, and emotional resilience through symbolic figuration. I use found or remembered objects as a means of processing lived experience and engaging viewers with narratives that are often unseen or unspoken.