I have been developing a body of work called Fractals & Jay Birds since 2020 and completed a residency at Interface in 2021, to develop a film about the restoration of sitka plantations to biodiverse woodland. I have since committed to the annual Woodland Symposium, a durational residency programme at Interface, to expand this body of work with five other artists and with the support of an ecologist and an archaeologist.

My current series of paintings are companion pieces to my film Forest/ry, evoking a slower, more measured response to the themes of the work. These small works on linen, gesso and birch panels reject the widescreen format of the film in favour of square and rectangular shapes and break down the photographic elements through the use of charcoal and oil paint. I incorporate the immediacy of the mechanical reproduction of images within the slow process of painting with oils. In doing so I reference the short-term thinking of monoculture forestry plantations in the context of the slow development of the ecology of biodiverse forests.

Image: Extracted, oil & digital print on birch panel, 28 x 28cm, 2023

Fractals & Jay Birds is generously funded by the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary Awards