This work explores the cyclical relationship between a painting and its painter. Being able to listen, understand and respond to what the painting needs is central to my practice. This mirrors the relationship we once had with the land - a relationship that has become distant and fractured. I’m trying to return to this closeness and ground myself both mentally and physically through this work. The paintings begin on the floor, bringing me physically closer and more aware of the ground. Working this way, with fluid, thin paint has allowed me to develop this cyclical conversation with the paintings, allowing paint to be free flowing - determining its own course during the making. I wanted the paintings to be an invitation for the viewer to slow down, even just for a minute and to breathe them in. To let that breath travel through them and out of their feet so that they are grounded and present in that place, with the work. "Is ioma ní is buaine ná an duine (there’s many a thing more lasting than a person)" is the title of my degree show. It is a saying used by the people of the Aran Islands, borrowed from a book, 'Aranmen All' by writer Tom O’Flaherty. It highlights the impermanence of human life in comparison to the land and how fragile and precious our time is here.
