Screen Printing
A series of projects from 2018 - present
Urban Hinterland
February 2021 - Present
This body of work looks at combining the city as a cramped and inconsistent place with the countryside as an open and free space. It asks: What will happen to the culture of the rural countryside when the urban city takes over?
The relationship between the city and the country, I feel, is a love/hate one. This is something that I have tried to capture in my work. Through photography, drawing, and screen-printing, cityscapes and juxtapositions that illustrate the impact of urban construction in rural spaces are created.
These images are created by incorporating a layering process into the screen-prints, making a series of seamless cityscapes. They are contrasted with panoramic photographs of the landscape from my homeplace in rural County Galway.
The City
September - December 2019
For this project I have been looking at the city as a cramped and inconsistent place. As I enjoy working with both mapping, journeys and buildings, I plan to combine these three elements in order to make one bigger project that will focus mostly on the everchanging urban city. Cityscapes and street lines are things that I find interesting as they both can be visually appealing when built right.
The urban city is one that is becoming cramped. The buildings are not consistent. The buildings do not match each other. It is becoming a mish/mash. Is there really the need for another fancy office block? Another fancy hotel? What will happen to the culture of the town when the towns culture gets taken away?
​
The notion of layering these image shows how the constant evolution of how the urban city will eventually cause huge disruption to the town. The inconsistency of the buildings makes the street lines of towns, not specifically Dublin, look all jumbled up.
I have been repeating these line drawings and flat images over and over again until, eventually, you can no longer make out the buildings anymore – you will be left with the abstraction of lines and irregular shapes.
Surveillance
September 2018 - January 2019
This project is based on Human Surveillance and its emotional factors. The idea of surveillance came about as I was re-evaluating previous work. As I was working with maps and mapping my daily journeys, I realised that this could somehow subconsciously become a form of surveillance, as maps can help people to pin point a certain place or area.
When you think of surveillance, you almost instantly think of cameras and the different types of surveillance cameras. I believe that where there is a camera, there is a viewer.
​
I wanted to explore the role of the person who is being watched by the looker (or the surveillant). How would they feel? I want to explore the feeling of wariness, the uneasy, the paranoid, the uncertainty of feeling safe.
​
I have done this by looking into the work of German Expressionist Artists such as Egon Schiele, Arnulf Rainer along with other artists. I have also looked at Expressionism in general in order to create various screen prints, etchings and lino prints on the subject of watch and being watched.
Mapping My Journey
February - May 2018
This project is about mapping my journeys and daily routes. I chose this as my subject matter as I wanted to make prints relating to myself and the places I go. As I live and work away from home, I feel as though I am always travelling, so I wanted to document the routes I take on a daily basis. For this project I have looked at artists such as Daniel Crooks, Sophie Calle and Mona Hatoum.
For my first set of prints, I decided to use the area around my home house in rural East Galway. These prints represent my home life.
For my second set, I gathered some pictures on my way to work. As I work on North Wall Quay, these prints represent my work life in Dublin.
​
For my third set of prints, I documented my journey from Dublin to Castlerea, showing my journey from Dublin to home. These prints show both Connolly Station and Castlerea Stations.
For my final set of prints, I explored the area in which I am living in Dublin. This is a representation of my ‘Home away from Home’.
​
