Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh is innately concerned with the material qualities of paint, and the physical act of painting itself. Resisting the confinements of allegory, she earnestly engages with painting as its own autonomous language. Much like a poet, Ní Mhaonaigh is interested in ambiguity and in anachronisms. It has been said that she is a painter who suggests rather than represents. Over the past two decades, Ní Mhaonaigh has presented solo exhibitions whose titles comprise singular words, derived from the Irish language, that describe the lived environment. These include Struchtúr, Cnuasach,Imlíne, Eatramh, Imeall, and Ardán - which translate into English as Structure, Cluster, Contour, Interval, Margin, and Platform. This litany of nouns serves to emphasise prevailing concerns in her work, relating to the exploration and elaboration of bounded space. One is free to interpret this in formal terms, as the construction of pictorial architecture, or as a gesture towards more symbolic or enigmatic spaces. Indeed, rather than addressing the particular or the parochial, Ní Mhaonaigh's paintings achieve an 'opening up' of landscape to consider universal themes of language, ancestry, and timeless depictions of place.