Biography
I am based between Galway City where I am currently studying in GMIT since 2017 and County Meath where I am from. My work was created between the two counties. I use the facilities in the college for my ceramic work. The landscape and materials I use in my film and photography are from my family’s farm in Meath. I use raw materials to create an organic sense in my work. In my ceramic pieces I extrude and hand-build to sculpt the clay. I use terracotta clay and terra-sigillata to maintain the earthy tone of the material. The tubular forms created for the primordial creature figure are made from nylon and sheep wool. There is a diverse number of materials and space in the landscape at home which is influential on my work. The human body is significant in my work. I fabricate surreal figures of the human body by creating limbs like anatomical votives. The collation between primordial and contemporary vision is seen through the juxtaposition of my ceramic and digital work.
Artist Statement
My work combines primordial, ancient and contemporary references to the body and landscape. I am a multidisciplinary artist working in ceramics, sculpture, digital media and drawing. I generate disfigured forms in order to look at how the body can be perceived through time and varied lenses.
Using clay, I make multiple body parts. These body parts come from the past and the present and combine realism and surrealism. Their limbs are like anatomical votives. These limbs become ancient forms in a contemporary world. They are made from clay, sheep wool, old earth and discarded garments. They come from the ground and find their ancient form in the landscape of today. They become part of my contemporary vision and are given life.
Through drawing I imagine and visualise how the body could potentially become and see how the body would look if the limbs continued in space, were multiplied or joined together. I amplify my vision through making. I stuff life into seemingly endless tubular forms which wrap around the body. They virtually obscure the original figure. They transform the body and move its place in time. These primordial, elegiac figures emerge from the landscape and water dragging masses of weight and time. These figures are brought to life and move in videos of the world around me.
Living on the farm and using raw materials around the yard and at home, the figures I imagine come to life and their texture becomes concrete, fleshy and translucent. Before the twentieth century ceramics were functional and static, but my ceramics and tubular forms are incorporated with my digital work to create motion and time-based narratives. Everything I make is hand built using materials I find around my environment.
The notion of the ancient hand building that has been around for centuries and a narrative being told through video and photography, gives the sense of ancient and contemporary forms collaborating.
