I’ve lived in so many different places in Dublin, from Mount Tallant in Harold’s Cross, to Rathgar, to Rathmines, to Dundrum, to Drimnagh, to Beggar’s Bush. There’s always been a sense of moving; an underlying very transient thing in my life.
I’ve been to four or five different schools. I went to school on the north side for a bit – to St John Bosco’s in Cabra. I still remember that playground. I remember being very nervous on the first day – it’s very strong in my mind, standing in a row just being so nervous. I remember kids’ shoes, and the seat next to me, and I remember the concrete yard, just little parts of it.
I moved out in my late teens, early 20s, and I’ve moved house every year or two years. The longest place I’d call home is, funnily enough, my studio. It’s a studio that I’ve had on Charlemont Square for six years. It’s the longest place I’ve stayed.
I had a friend when I was in primary school and his dad had a studio space upstairs in his house. He was a graphic designer but did loads of illustrations, and I found that space really curious, and really cool. He brought us to the National Gallery with some pencils and charcoals and paper. That’s ar really key memory – sitting on the floor of the National Gallery and drawing whatever was in front of us.
[As a teenager] I found a pocket of graffiti artists who were very like me – curious, creative. Graffiti – street art – really tickled that itch of creativity and put me in a space with other like-minded “outsiders”. I found my tribe and leaned into it. It gave me a sense of community, I think, and purpose.
I was exploring Dublin through the lens of: you can go anywhere, you can literally run around, get the Dart out to Bray – pure play and creativity. This was the mid-1990s. I found [Dublin] a bit more gritty, but more open. The places I was going to wouldn’t be your usual places. Windmill Lane, down on the quays, was a little haven for spray painting. It was a very mixed space. Now it’s all been developed, and it’s lost in some way its charm for me.
Where the Bord Gáis Theatre is – they used to call it Misery Hill – was a big, abandoned place that we used to go and spray paint. The Travelling community lived up at the top. You [were] stepping into these spaces that were sort of forbidden in some way, and risky. There was addiction in some of the areas. Now it’s all polished. I guess that’s the way cities transform and change. But I got to see a lot of different areas of Dublin, a lot of in-between areas that people don’t explore.
[ Maser in Mountjoy: ‘The energy was insane. I was genuinely scared’Opens in new window ]
I moved to the US for a few years, and then to London. And then I came back and saw how transformed the city was. It made me realise how transient the space is. Most of the murals that I painted, even legal ones and commissioned ones, are gone. I had a studio down on Newmarket Square 15 years ago, and I painted a big “I’m a Homebird” on that wall. That space was very real, and mixed, and now it’s changed a lot. I see certain communities in there that have been fragmented, that aren’t respected.
[Early in my career], there was a lot of travel. I’d be going to France, Germany, Australia, Hawaii, Russia, really cool places, doing artwork, painting murals. But internally I was quite disjointed. I don’t think what I was doing aligned with what felt right in me. There was a lot of burnout, emotionally and physically. It came to a point where it was like, I think I need to go home. That was counterintuitive to the progression of my career, I was worried that I was going to be stepping backwards. But I just had the need to do that. I’ve always navigated with my gut.
[ Street art in Ireland: The thorny issue of what is permittedOpens in new window ]
I came back about seven or eight years ago and I set up Atelier Maser (I changed the name to Atelier Now a few years later). It was taking all the things I had learned from travel and creating a space that not only was a studio but also held other things that were important to me [like meditation and facilitating other artists’ projects]. That became me being rooted and grounded in Dublin. I wasn’t going backwards, it was the next chapter. And I fell in love with Ireland again because it offered me a lovely sense of place and security. I realised how safe this place was and how maybe it was the best place to have a family and call home.
I think Ireland has nurtured my mental health through its landscape. To be able to go out and hike and feed good thoughts and good actions – I don’t think I was able to get that in places like London.
[ From the archive: ‘I had a bit of a rocky year. Mentally, I just felt drained’Opens in new window ]
My work has fallen into an abstract, contemporary expressive space, but peeling back the layers, you can look at how it’s informed by the Irish landscape. A thing I love about Dublin and Ireland is how accessible natural resources are. I was jogging by the sea this morning with the sun coming up. And then just last weekend I was up in the Dublin mountains with my son and wife. I jog to the sea and, geographically, I know I’m at the edge of something. And then I go up a mountain and look over and get a real sense of space – I get perspective and context on who I am and where I am. My work, at first glance, mightn’t be “Irish”, but it’s all informed by my locations.
In conversation with Niamh Donnelly. This interview, part of a series, was edited for clarity and length. The best of cutting edge and contemporary art, including an installation by Maser, will be showcasedat the first Art Evolve fair, which takes place at the RDS (Industries Hall) from April 4th-6th. Full fair details and booking at artevolve.ie.
