A Place,
on this Earth.

These 6 pieces have become affectionately known as “vinyls”. The lines of colour seemed to be like the individual grooves etched on to a vinyl record representing the individual yet connected sounds that combine to create a piece of music. Each different yet all blending and swirling towards the other. Creating their own distinct sound and vibration.

They represent a unique set of exploratory and expressive pieces for me. Instead of my characteristic big, flowing, physical brushstroke markings, I set out to create a sense of trying to ‘capture’ time and light. To pause time and commemorate forever those glorious but fleeting moments of light which unfold in early dawn and late dusk over Dublin Bay. I imagined the lines of light that may exist way far beyond what we can see, rising from within the earth towards the sky and into the stratosphere.

I meditated on how tree sap sometimes can, as if unmoving, secretly flow over moments of any given life at any instant and preserve it forever. Celebrating that instantaneous moment in perpetuity. Created in the 10 weeks after my mother died early last year, I explored original experimental processes, sometimes bordering on ‘construction’ as I sought to encapsulate ever-changing light and preserve fleeting moments. As I layered colour and inks and pigments and varnishes and forced them to connect and combine I then sealed them in over weeks with layers of different varnishes, like tree sap slowly encasing and taking its own line of movement.

The result can be seen as if cross sections or a dissection have been taken of the land, the sea, the sky over Dublin bay and so much more above and below and beyond that. Only 6 of these unique pieces have been made to date. What I’ve learned from this project I’ve taken forward as ever into new work.