Part of Aidan Hickey’s Ulysses series, which was exhibited in Zurich, at the UB Law, as part of the exhibit “James Joyce, Ulysses, and the Law” (April 15 to May 18, 2025).
“After leaving the Ormond Hotel, Bloom walks to Barney Kiernan’s pub, in pursuit of a business contact. However, instead of a useful conversation he encounters the naked aggression and anti-Semitism of ‘The Citizen’.
Although normally passive in the face of hostility, Bloom defends himself with vigour. Homer armed Odysseus with a smouldering stick. Joyce gave Bloom a cigar. I provided an umbrella, as a more graphically convincing weapon. Having asserted his identity as a Jewish Irishman, Bloom wisely departs.
In illustrating Cyclops I borrowed devices from Dublin’s most famous painter, Francis Bacon. But my Wolfhound design was heavily influenced by the creature that afflicted John Hurt’s character in Alien.”
Aidan Hickey