The feeling is mutual for Maxwell, who adds: “We immediately hit it off and have been close friends since. In her work she explores family histories, mythology, and the influence of her constant adventuring. Serena is primarily a painter and uses vivid colours in her work, and her works latterly feature animals that have a particular resonance to her – racehorses, family pets or creatures remembered from paintings that hung in her childhood home. Her work ethic is astonishing, and she will create new bodies of work in a very quick time. In her own words, ‘she likes to paint quickly and think slowly’. For me, Serena is one of the most exciting artists working at the moment, making paintings that are energetic, passionate, and full of potential, a bit like Serena herself.”

Specialising in painting and drawing, Caulfield likes to combine different painting processes as well as entangle stories, histories and memories in her beautiful mashed-up allegories. She says: “Myths were the maps of communities, intimately dialoguing with their environment, and I like to think my paintings work similarly.

“I am an artist of a time with no time. My sources range from classical artworks to children’s drawing books, aural histories to local myths. Disobeying a linear art history while reclaiming it somehow in the present, I repurpose art history to play with its power, both visually and conceptually, imbuing the anachronisms of the past with the attitudes of the present.”

She has exhibited regionally and nationally in Ireland including group shows at the National Gallery of Ireland and Crawford Art Gallery.

She says: “I was really proud to have a portrait of my father shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize 2021 at the National Gallery of Ireland and then at Crawford Art Gallery in Cork. My Dad was very proud too, and told everyone that he met that we’d ‘won’ the prize! It made me laugh a lot and I smile when I think of it now. He had a small bit of dementia due to Parkinson’s disease, but I totally went with our story. He passed away very recently. Happy memories, in a time that was tough for us all.”

In 2023, you’ll be seeing a lot more of her work too – she is currently working towards three solo exhibitions at Wexford Arts Centre, Ballina Arts Centre, and Hang Tough Contemporary, Ireland’s newest commercial gallery, plus a number of group shows.