Selected Recent Work
Bog Spell 2025
Emerging Narratives 2024 with soundcloud link
This Is How I Pray 2024
In Toto 2024
How's She Cuttin'? 2023
2025
Bog Spell |”Bloodroot”|Hamilton Gallery & Embassy of Ireland, The Hague, The Netherlands, Pulchri Studio, the Hague, Netherlands.
Iron rich ash from burnt peat turf, human breath as photographs.
30cm x 30cm
2025
Bog Spell I & II were created in response to the Open Call “Bloodroot” from Hamilton Gallery Sligo and The Embassy of Ireland, The Netherlands. Female artists were invited to respond to selected poems by Annemarie Ní Churreáin from her 2017 publication Bloodroot. One of my favourite living poets, and luckily my favourite poem from this collection was on the list.
Bog Spell I & II are in response to Bog Medicine by Annemarie Ní Churreáin
Bog Medicine
Drink these star-leafed nettles
And keep in your purse a fern.
To become invisible, say your harm
To the hill.
This hill is pagan.
This hill is Hill.
It will answer in bog-tongue
And occasional fire,
Burning back the earth
Along the heather-stream
despite bald heels of rock,
despite the kissy mink,
despite a saintly air
until the stream runs dark
with what needs
to blacken out of you.
Emerging Narratives | STAC Chapel 2024
Historical and current photographs, marker on geotextile and fabric, oars and boat floor, boat building paraphernalia, sound piece with interactive elements. Process Zine and postcard collection.
Variable dimensions. 2024
Social Engagement & Practice Mentorship Programme - Building for the Future from STAC and Creative Ireland.
Over six months, I received mentorship from Deirdre O’Mahony, Kate O’Shea, Evelyn Broderick & Enya Moore. I spent the final two of those months, working with The Workmen’s Boat Club in Clonmel. We explored the River Suir from the perspective of the members, most of whom have spent their entire lives on the river. We mapped out the stretch of river that the club uses and gathered place names and stories, and a host of species which they both see regularly and have not seen in years.
These stories were also woven into the sound piece with the interactive pieces being accessible via scanning QR Codes.
Further sculptural elements were supplied by the use of boat and boat building paraphernalia supplied by the Club for the duration of exhibition.
Sound piece which was on constant loop throughout exhibition is available through this public Soundcloud link. Two examples of the accompanying QR Code pieces are included here & here.
These overlapping recordings are accessed by visiting members of the public through scanning the codes interspersed throughout the map.
This year, leading from the success of this mentorship award, I have received Creative Ireland/ Tipperary County Council Project Award to produce a new socially engaged work, entitled Collection of Things Nearly Forgotten.
This Is How I Pray | La Pocha Nostra Performance presented by Live Art Ireland, The Source Arts Centre, Thurles. 2024
New Prayer, glass vessels and charred sculptures
Live and unrecorded
2024
Meditative live performance as part of gathering of invited performance artists. Instigated and presented by La Pocha Nostra.
In Toto | Zeitgeist Irland 24, “Meant To Fade” Saarbruken, Germany. WITHDRAWN
K-Fest 2024 & An Chead Tine, “Lines of The Land"
Kilkenny. 2024
Charred peat, Iranian red ochre, Kilkenny limestone, dripping water at a rate of 30 drips per minute.
2m x 65cm
2024
Water drips in a concealed circulatory system and drips continuously over Kilkenny limestone covered in Iranian red ochre, until eventually, water erodes away the ochre to reveal stone beneath. Structure is cloaked in creased paper, coated with charred peat, peat brought to its carbon self.
The execution of this piece was poor, however, the method of controlling the water drip was a success as was the action of erosion.
iranian red ochre (500 million years old) is washed from
kilkenny limestone (340 million years old) by
water (4.5 billion years old) enclosed by
raised bed peat (forming for the last 10 thousand years)
iranian red ochre – human, homo from humus meaning living soil
kilkenny limestone – formed while this landmass sits on equator under warm tropical sea
water – formed in space as tiny dust particles, human bodies are more than half water
raised bed peat – significant part of vegetation landscape, forming from end of last ice age
iranian red ochre – take in / soul song / ingest to heal
kilkenny limestone – foundations / layer lines / memory holder
water – everywhere all at once
raised bed peat – holder of storylines
copper pipes (circulation, drip)
water pump (circulation, electricity)
wood and paper (structure)
How's She Cuttin'? | Clonmel Junction Festival, 2023
Charred Peat, clear & blue Perspex.
30cm x 10cm x 10cm
Atlantic bog peat, transformed through the process of charring in three parts. Each part positioned on Perspex slices, varying height. Blue is used to signify the presence of vivianite – blue ochre. There is an expression when digging a bog- “dig until you hit the blue soil”, signifying the reaching of the bottom, the region just above the iron pan.
This piece is a tongue in cheek considering the conversation around access to, and cutting of peat. From the scarred midlands to winter fuel, peat extraction is a multi-layered and sometimes raucous topic.
The finding of vivianite is a rare and special occurrence. It has been used across the globe and throughout history by the healers and holy people. I believe it to be a gift only granted to those chosen by the soil to receive it. I strive to be chosen.
The fresh turf has been charred, essentially forcing the material to form in a re-crystallised carbon state, where “a graphite-like structure that causes an increased absorption of electromagnetic radiation, and hence the material appears black”. Ref. Jenny Boulboullé & Sven Dupré, Burgundian Black