My project began as a walk across Wicklow, connecting the humanity of its Neolithic and monastic past with my present.
It became ‘Quarantine’ – a record of over 40 days from March 25th to May 4th, 2020. ‘Quarantena’ was the term given to the period of 40 days that ships arriving in Venetian ports were forced to wait offshore to ensure that they were not carrying the Plague. I laid out 40 CDs. Every day I removed one, wrote the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths worldwide and in Ireland in the empty square, and placed a stone in the empty space.
The connecting motif is stones – marker stones, memorial stones, sculptures, passages, gravestones, stones in the construction of the tumulus and the monastic buildings – stones built to welcome deities, solstices, equinoxes, sunrises and sunsets, to capture the life force of their gods for the Earth, and to mark our returning to the Earth.
- Walk.jpg. A walk across Wicklow from West to East, 23rd February 2020.
- Book.jpg. Acrylic paint, inks, gesso, carborundum powder & cotton thread from prayer flags, in 24 double pages of 32 cms x 25 cms.
- Church Mountain (1).jpg. Acrylic on board. 38 cms x 32 cms.
- Church Mountain (2).jpg. Acrylic on board. 38 cms x 32 cms.
- Church Mountain (3).jpg. Acrylic on board. 38 cms x 32 cms.
- How the sun will find us at the end of winter (1).jpg. Indian ink, gesso and carborundum powder on paper. 42 cms x 28 cms.
- How the sun will find us at the end of winter (2).jpg. Indian ink, gesso and carborundum powder on paper. 42 cms x 28 cms.
- Quarantine Calendar (1) jpg. 40 faces – 40 stones; CDs, paper, pencil and stones. Each image is originally 140 cms x 100 cms.
- Quarantine Calendar (2).jpg. 40 faces. Selfies.
- Interstice and Calendar stones.jpg. gesso, carborundum powder and Indian ink on paper, with 40 stones from Quarantine calendar. 108 cms x 76 cms.