I am a queer Irish artist who is interested in exploring themes of emotion and the body. Using a mix of mediums, such as painting and print, I create figurative work using myself as a reference. Displayed through the dismantling and manipulation of the body, my work attempts to create a visual avenue for feelings such as love, desire, and obsession. My work showcases a physical manifestation of sexuality and kink, grief and longing, and guilt and sin. Taking reference from religious imagery, my work contains Catholic symbolisms which have been modified to represent faith and devotion to another human being. Through this, I imply love being a religious experience. The lack of background in my work aims to create a disconnect between those in the paintings and out, allowing the audience to witness, but not participate in, the connection between the figures. Many things inspire my art, from Goya to the contemporary Siobhan Kaufman. Motivated by their ability to combine horror and gore with love and emotion, their work was a big influence for my degree show. Theorists such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault also changed the way I looked at themes of power, gender, and the body, which in turn allowed me to explore such themes with a deeper context. To me, the most important part of making is the development. The way in which the work creates its own narrative and becomes something other than what it began, allows everyone to take something different with them. Whether understanding this work as romantic or inimical, viewers can relate their own experiences to the images.
