I hold the bubble wrap for my Hungarian husband, as he carefully packages my latest artworks to ship home to Dublin for Bloomsday. It’s strange to think that if we still lived in Ireland, I probably would never have started this ambitious, slightly insane, 20-year Irish art project. I feel like us Irish abroad get a bit more Irish as the years go by. Craving connection.
I’m creating one artwork per page of James Joyce’s Ulysses, with 933 pages in total, it’s likely to take me more than 20 years to complete. Watch this space in 2042. I’m inspired by the colours, textures and emotional landscape of each page, and I’ve just hit my first major milestone: Colours of Ulysses 100. On this page (of my Penguin Classics edition) Joyce gave me the gift of Guinness.
In the passage from the Lotus Eaters’ section, Leopold Bloom watches a Mass after ducking into St Andrew’s Church. As the priest drinks the last drops of wine from the chalice, Bloom observes: “Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank what they are used to Guinness’s porter”.
I’ll never forget my first pint of the black stuff, fittingly in a pub on Thomas Street. It was during a three-legged pub race as part of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) rag week circa 2002. I downed the creamy pint while attached at the ankle of another, hoping the next drink wasn’t a warm Dutch Gold.
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So when Joyce handed me one of Ireland’s best-known exports on page 100, I was tickled. I binged-watched House of Guinness on Netflix in preparation. Like a tourist on TikTok, I took photos of my settling pints on trips home. “Research for COU 100” I’d unashamedly shout to my sisters perched on stools in Dublin pubs as we soaked up the hum and laughter of a good time.
All these emotions and memories poured back to me one unassuming May Monday as I traipsed in and out of my art studio to our garden here in rural Hungary. ’Door’ I’d holler at my ever-patient husband, while I tried to manoeuvre each newly mixed colour swirling precariously on a tray, without spilling, or leaving permanent Guinness-coloured fingerprints on our handles.
In and out, I went. My art studio is not big enough for the oversized artwork that is COU 100, two 100x100cm canvases side by side. This diptych demanded to be created as one. I talked to myself to stay calm. My anxiety was riding high with such a huge milestone, as I applied one creamy colour after another.
As the time neared 18:59 CET (no joke), I felt a sudden sense of calm. It was happening. The voice inside my head whispered: “Put the brush down, Natalie.” That voice I have learnt to listen to, over the past four years and 99 artworks. The self-trust slowly converting to confidence. No more “just another wee bit over here”. No. Stop. Step away. Settle. Breathe. It’s time. Now bring it home.
This Bloomsday I will bring COU 100 Guinness and other selected artworks from my Colours of Ulysses series to Dublin for my first exhibition on Irish soil – a private Bloomsday evening at the St Stephen’s Green Club, alongside performances by my dear friends Sonaírí. I’m grateful, nervous and excited to bring my art home for the first time. Like Joyce, I never stop thinking about Dublin and I’m sure I’ll fit in a pint while I’m there.
Sláinte. To Joyce. To art. To home.
Natalie Forrester lives in Sóstóhegy, Hungary with her husband László and son Wolfe. She is a visual abstract artist and yoga teacher.
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