Janet Mullarney trained as a furniture restorer in Italy before becoming a well-known and innovative wood-sculptor. Her work draws on history and personal experience of life in Catholic Ireland and Italy which she expresses in her sculptures and installations, using a mixture of traditional techniques, found or recycled objects and new materials. The references in ‘Domestic Gods II’ are wide ranging. The female figure resembles those in Piero della Francesca’s fresco cycle of the True Cross at Arezzo, where the artist lives, but the altar she occupies is an ordinary kitchen table with the usual paraphernalia of kitchen utensils in the drawer. The relationship between child and mother figure is disconcerting however. The mother is not all that she seems to be. In addition to her mask, the cosy perception of motherhood is challenged by the cheap novel she holds open with her finger and the suggestive pose of the child. In Mullarney’s world there are no certainties. We must all take responsibility for our beliefs and actions. ‘Domestic Gods II’ was first shown in the IMMA Glen-Dimplex artist award exhibition for which Mullarney was nominated in 1998.