The Wall
160cm high x 125cm wide (& 180cm high x 180cm wide)
Mosses, lichens, Bryophytes, Ferns, Wildflowers, Brambles, Ivy, Resin & Acrylic
In 2008 I was approached by The National Museum to create a piece for the Contemporary Collection. I wanted to reference the collection somehow, and so took a tour one Monday while The Museum was closed with the furniture curator Jennifer Goff who happens to be one of the world’s leading experts on Eileen Gray. Her tour of those rooms was particularly interesting and I decided to reinterpret the famous 1920’s Brick Screen.
Walls tell many stories and have played a fascinating part in history – keeping people in, or people out. In Ireland we still have the walls from Celtic forts, early Christian monasteries, Norman castles and towns, English estates and the divided religious zones in the north, as well as the ubiquitous are the stone walls that criss-cross the country. Using resin allowed me to suspend stories in optically clear yet physically solid panels, to create an interior ‘wall’ that functions to divide a space but allow light and visibility through parts. Aesthetically these walls are even more interesting as they start to crumble and are slowly reclaimed by nature – mosses and lichens, brambles and ivy, ferns, sedems and wildflowers all rooting for life wherever possible.
Ekballium
A central theme of the piece is movement, with inspiration drawn from both the ingenious, aerodynamic seed carriers themselves and from the structures and rhythms of our own dance forms such as ballet. The movement of seeds is intrinsically about continuation and breaking new frontiers, and this piece pays tribute to this life affirming supersystem.
Ekballium - the word originates from the ancient Greek word “ἐκβάλλω” (ekvállo) which means to discharge our throw out - is a meditation on nature’s inherent optimism, a tribute to the strange mystery and regenerative promise of the cusp.
Plants - various grasses (including setaria, fescue, rye, timothy and pampas) various clematis, scabious, hawksweed, dandelions, ivy, thistles, bog cotton, michaelmas daisy, nigella, honesty, maple leaves, skeletal leaves (including magnolia, holly and hydrangeas) white feathers.
Dimensions - 1.95m high x 2.7m wide
Pappus
Miss Bán (2015)
Acrylic, resin, foraged organic material, anodised aluminium
450/880h x 625 x 625mm
This chair was made to commission in hommage to Shiro Kuramata’s classic chair Miss Blanche (1988)
The materials were inspired by those found in/around a typical Carlow ditch. The sides (arms) are filled with ferns, gorse, bluebells and primroses, umbellifers and wildflower seedheads amongst the climbing brambles and ivy… while the seat is more about the fallen matter such as feathers, skeletal woodland leaves, pinecones and acorns, branches, mosses, lichens, mushrooms and other natural debris. Flying amongst this are some Irish black bees and bumblebees (who came to rest on the windowledges in the farmyard outside my studio) Encapsulated in resin and acrylic, with a recessed curved acrylic back – a technical improvement on the original- and anodised aluminium legs.
Kingdom (Killarney Throne)
Burning Gorse
Gorse Weaponry
Smaller Irish Landscape Projects
