I waited at my usual train station, taking photos and watched the people around me and wondered what was going to happen to all of us. Covid-19 had reached our country, our state and our city. Cases were springing up everywhere and the decision had been made to shut down our office and everyone was to work from home. A couple of days later all the offices in the city were shutdown. Restrictions and lockdown had begun.
Trains still ran for essential workers who had to carry paperwork at all times, but for most of us it was off limits and would be for another thirty-six weeks.
For the last eight years or so I have been photographing my commute, using windows, doorways and reflections to frame the people and their stories. It started as a way to bring some art creation back into my life. I had learnt photography from my father who taught me how to work a darkroom, film cameras and the joy that comes from capturing an image. I went on to study photography after school and fell completely in love. The years went on and the need for enough money to live, and then life pulled me away from the practice. But once I hit my thirties I realised how much I was missing, and it was time to make it happen once more. So I challenged myself to capture images on the way to and from my work. My obsession with commuters had begun.
Public transport is a heartbeat of a city and a visible microcosm of our society. No matter what socio-economic, political or cultural background you come from it is one of those things that everyone uses, a great equalizer.
Commuting in Melbourne during peak hour has become my meditation time really, it is hard to describe but it is the few hours of the day where I can focus on my art and reflect on my own thoughts and see myself within the people around me. No-one talks on the train, no-one makes eye contact. People dive into their devices and try to avoid others, they just want to get to their destination without incident, “don’t make eye contact with the crazy” is the unspoken rule.
I read the newspaper in between my stops and become furious at the decisions being made, punishment and outrage seems to spin the wheels of our media these days and it saddens me. I look at the people going about their everyday life and wonder if they will ever become aware that their pain, their struggles and sense of isolation is not unique but yet felt by everyone.
It is these scenes that I love to put a spotlight on, to show others what they miss by looking down all day. Street photography is a unique beast, it has varying opinions but really I see it as capturing now, the current history, the current people, places and faces. This year more than ever I have come to realise how important it is that someone, somewhere is taking images of the mundane. We lose a giant reflective mirror on ourselves if we don’t take the time to focus on what’s around us.
I purposely choose to use a mobile phone rather than a heavy bulky DSLR for my commuting images. I like the challenge of the technology; it reminds me of using a thirty-year-old film camera where you never know what you are going to get. Mobile phone cameras have a level of unknown, for example – how far can you push it? Can you find the edges of the extreme and still produce a good image? You don’t have to be technically minded to use one either and that accessibility in particular I love. It removes one of the biggest barriers which can scare people off the art – which is “How do I use this thing?”
Accessibility has not helped make the industry take mobile photography seriously however. It feels like some days people think that if too many people know the secrets then we have ruined the entire industry. This is an opinion I completely disagree with. More people taking more photos only generates more ideas, more focus and new identities.
Like all change, it’s slow, competitions now have specific categories for mobile photography, but they are lesser in their reward. It is a reminder that acceptance of quality in particular has some way to go.
The reality is, however, that it doesn’t matter what equipment you use, a great image will always be a great image. You can’t make a technically perfect but poorly captured image brilliant. You either have a great image or you don’t. You can’t force it and you can’t force others to like it. In particular, I wish I could tell my younger self that. Just be and create what you see, ignore the noise, ignore the internal self-judgement. Your own unique view has substance and worth.
So what’s in the future? Hope I think. It will be months still before I can regularly shoot on trains again but it is allowing me time to consider what’s next and to reflect on what I have captured over the years. I am currently trying to put together images which will be turned into a book. I have been published in a couple of different books this year and I have another coming out next year which be amazing. Exhibitions and competitions I have put on the back burner until I am ready to come out of this covid-19 slumber.
There is always work to be done, and images to capture, and although times at the moment make it hard not only to get out physically, but emotionally and mentally to have space for creation that will change. Things always do whether we want them to or not. Life and art are precious and for those that like to create the two are often intertwined.
A decade has passed since my individual and community artistic adventure began in Dublin. I very often hear about how lucky I am to have my own live painting studio, interactive installation in the middle of Temple Bar, but I know luck had very little to do with it.
Ten years ago I walked those streets of Temple Bar and no one could have imagined it would be possible to walk those lanes. It was a NO GO area and even Dubliners did not walk there. They were identified as dark spaces, and with anti-social behaviour, public toilets and worse. There was no reason why people would choose to walk there.
Now our art projects attract hundreds every day into the area, and are included in national tour guides, indicated as one of the most popular attractions in the area: an art centre which invites artists to participate in the project with its educational and civilised mission. We made this space safer and a better place for all.
That involved less luck than a lot of hard work, determination, passion, love and seeing the possibility of creating impossibly. It was an idea and vision to create something out of nothing. That is what makes creativity so special. We did the impossible.
As a young artist, graduating from a university with a Fine Arts degree I dreamed about white walls in beautiful galleries and my work being exhibited there. It turned out white walls were not my destiny.
I ask myself ‘WHY’ the dark abandoned streets where no one would like to be? No white walls and lighted shop windows. Unconsciously, I decided to be inspired and say ‘YES’. After seeing what we did I now understand better why that was.
Art is an action for me. I experience creativity as a development of new ideas in my charity and individual work. It is also an activity which makes a difference. I like my art and social engagement to be part of a transformation, sometimes physical, sometimes behavioural. I pay strong attention in my work to connecting with the simple fact that art is part of our humanity, something which adds to us as humans.
The purpose of art is to make us experience something: a feeling, an insight, a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves – that mystery that we are.
This is what I need from art, and why the world would be impoverished without art and artists of all kinds.
The visual images I create work towards an analysis of human relationships at different points of development in our life cycles. At any given time in the process of my work the individual paintings will be linked by a common interest, a thread of analysis that is stretched across a series of works. Taken together they pose particular questions – focus on particular phases of life, and draw attention to how relationships develop.
Often my artworks contain scripts; short commentaries, antonyms or dictionary definitions. These are sometimes provocative additions to re-stimulate the viewer towards the analysis of a scene.
The technique I use (oil, ink, collage) allows me to pose questions in each painting. Each painting asks the viewer to visually punctuate the image by inserting his or her own points or marks in the unfinished sentence that is the painting – the life depicted there.
My paintings are both figurative and abstract, highly contemporary and visually arresting in my use of colour and black ink. They are intended to carry my ideas but are also open to many interpretations as well.
Aga Szot Art Studio – Live Painting Studio Installation
The motivation to create this installation came from some fundamental ideas I share with many artists and cultural commentators on the function and role of art for us humans. It also came from some specific ideas I had about the particular location in which it is set, that is Temple Bar, here in Dublin.
Firstly I share the view with many others that art is vital for the soul. In creating or sharing an experience of art we learn a lot about ourselves and our world. Through art we connect with our inner selves and with each other. We form cultural bonds across a common human community dissolving inner and outer boundaries, boundaries of self and other, of race, place and time.
I firmly believe that we need art in public spaces – not just finished art, but venues that de-mystify the artistic process, that offer non-artists the chance to share in that process. Many pop-up projects have existed in the city offering a brief chance for pedestrians to encounter artists at work. This installation, I feel, extends the opportunity for people to pause and interact with the creation of art – to reflect on this process and to experience what I’ve outlined as the benefits of encounters with art, that expansion of the self and soul, that breaking of boundaries, that chance to connect with things beyond ourselves.
Aga Szot Art Studio is an idea to create an art installation, which is at the same time an art studio where I can work on a regular basis and allow people to watch me painting; a place where people can see an artist’s work environment; where they can see a work developing and coming into being in front of them. It is a special experience, watching artists at work, witnessing the process of creation.
Watching an artist at work can, for both artist and audience, fixate us in ‘the amber of the moment’ and can offer a unique encounter, much more than a mere visual sight – an insightful experience.
The Icon Walk & The Icon Factory
By establishing an open-air cultural installation we have, for the most part, rescued the back lanes from petty criminality and improved the amenity of the entire Temple Bar area. The Icon Walk is a free open-air public art installation that promotes Irish culture and heritage.
We use art as an educational tool and promote culture. Practice and media we use help us to communicate and encourage citizens to think differently about their environments.
Our presence in the area has reduced crime through the use of Art/Culture and encourages a new role for artists in urban areas and society. The Icon Walk is affiliated with The Icon Factory, a not-for-profit artists’ gallery. The gallery promotes artists, provides training (internships), and experience to artists, and offers a chance for artists to display their work on The Icon Walk.
The Icon Walk has been credited with reducing crime in the area, increasing visitor satisfaction and has been praised as offering a new educational tool to the many student groups that visit the city. As several of its larger art works feature Irish writers, of all genres, The Icon Walk has been endorsed by the city’s UNESCO City of Literature office as an important site for the celebration of Irish literary talent and culture.
All Artworks present are by Aga Szot.
All photographs are published by kind courtesy of the Authors.
The word ‘landscape’ not only refers to the topography of an environment, but also to its existence within society, consciousness and experiences. As we move through our existence we traverse thousands of constantly shifting landscapes – geographic and experiential- moulding them around us. Boundaries shape how we think, move and express ourselves. Our ability to understand ourselves, and our place in this world, rests on our collective responsibility to protect and celebrate our surroundings.
My work is grounded in an exploration of ‘landscape’ through colour and texture. Visually, I create bold, visceral works that stretch between two and three dimensions. My work is site-responsive and my large scale works are created and exhibited in remote, wild locations, inviting audiences to experience the works in situ. I describe myself as a painter, although my practice spans various mediums including bio colour, printmaking, sculpture, photography, installations. In 2016 I created a site-responsive arts organisation with artist Hazel Mc Cague. Lay of the Land strives to support artists and communities through the production of art.
Paying heed to ‘landscape’ requires acknowledgement of its physical, cultural, historical, economic and social influences. This is intrinsic to both my practices. My own work focuses on colour as a means of investigation, whereas Lay of the Land employs large scale exhibitions and residency structures to empower artists and communities to respond to “site” collaboratively.
Site Responsive Art
Site-responsive art serves to enliven the relationship with the natural environment. It is an immersion in, investigation of, and response to ‘site’. In my mind, site-responsive art is a kind of collaboration, between artist and place. Having a site-responsive practice requires me to spend periods of time immersed in nature, exploring sites by actively engaging with them. These journeys are integral to my work. Not only do I respond to thecol landscape but I create colour from within the landscape. The act of searching for the colours forces me to approach the environment with a bold investigation and is as much part of the process as the resulting palette. The process of creating bio-pigments and paints this past year has allowed me to contrast factory produced colours with a more circular-centred approach to making. I am shifting my work away from reliance on disposable, unsustainable, petroleum-based materials such as acrylic. The resulting paintbox of bio-colour highlights the spectrum of materials that grow in abundance around us.
What my work looks like
I have a direct and intuitive process of energetic mark-making which allows me to better understand the physical and visceral experience of an environment. I use strokes and colour combinations as a way to invite the audience to explore the landscape. My work features the interplay of light and tone to create a balance of motion. I drip, scrape, bruise and blush colour onto surfaces. I sketch, paint and draw. This creates a visual map from which the aesthetic and form of my larger paintings or installations stem from. I record the energy of crashing rain, the piercing light at sunset and the slow shadows across the mountain, weaving them between stories and folklore I hear through conversations along the way.
Colour-making from the Environment
I create paint from seaweeds along the coast, from rocks and sand at diverse, geological sites, from local wildflowers in maritime grasslands, from cliffs and ledge habitats. I dig earth pigments from mineral-rich, low-lying valleys and extract botanical pigment from native trees. I search for hues found within lichen, moss, algae and fungi. Paying attention to the industrial and maritime heritage of our island, I collect copper and iron scraps at industrial and port areas. I gather, grind, pulverise and suspend the materials in order to produce ecologically friendly paint particular to each environment. The pallets of colour form the foundation of my artworks.
The parameters for colour creation expands considerably in a controlled environment. Using my studio as a laboratory I tweak ph levels and apply lake pigment extraction methods to alter viscosity. I oxidise copper scraps with vinegar to make a beautiful blue colour and modify the vibrance of berry ink using iron oxides from rusty nails. Allowing the materials to decay or chemically change through these natural processes I can connect with the ephemeral, geographical, and cultural nature of the landscape. I pool, drip and soak pigments onto the surface of paper and canvas, calling them to interact with each other. Precipitation occurs as the pigments permeate. As the painting dries new colours emerge. Through my research and experiments I am creating a compendium of colour; detailing the shades and hues achieved from.
Sustainability and the Future
Artistically, my aim is to drive artists and the experience of art outwards into the wild environments of the natural world. High-quality artistic work energises through a sense of place-making and engagement with culture, history and heritage. By working within the public realm my work has the potential to engage with an audience outside of art institutions and galleries. These audiences are presented with work that speaks about sustainability through exciting colour interventions, while simultaneously imbuing a sense of value and appreciation for the arts into their psyche. By celebrating the resources nature has to offer us, we can alter the perception that a linear economy is necessary and open to exploring more circular based templates of development.
My process of creating colour echoes age-old techniques that have been employed by humans for millennia. These techniques have had a huge influence over our cultures, from the charting of trade routes to the dissemination of knowledge and cultures between tribes, to the sealing of legal documents with signatures. Marking ourselves in time is part of the human condition but natural processes have been cast aside in favour of factory-produced chemicals that produce vast amounts of waste, pollute rivers and damage the overall health of our environments and therefore, our society. I will search for new forms of interaction that could transform our ambitions, values and perceptions in order to build a more sustainable future. My artistic practice can contribute to the development of new perspectives on our cultural, historical and natural landscape.
Where I am Going Next
I have been accumulating, gathering, foraging, collecting and recording places in Ireland. Collectively, these pieces are beginning to emerge as the foundation of a new project – a site-responsive book tracing the experience landscape through colour and texture. The book will be a map of sorts, where facts are replaced by experiences, and place names with colours.
The book will exist as a collection of thoughts and discoveries, bound together, archiving that place, in this era. Accompanying a pigment glossary, the book will contain musings written in situ, spoken histories captured through conversations, and small trail maps that identify locations rich in bio-diversity and bio-colour.
The site-responsive nature of my work, paired with the deepening of my practice towards a more sustainable approach to making has increasingly made me question urban living. In March this year, I decided to move away from Dublin, which has served as my base for the past decade. I write this piece from Sligo, where I moved with my partner Fellipe Lopes, right as the lockdown kicked in. Sligo is situated on the North West Coast of the country and features looming mountains, jagged coastlines, scattered lakes, and rich woodland. It’s as well known for its literary heritage as it is ‘The Rovers’. Its accent dials from steady, almost flat, to a Donegal lilt.
Tomorrow I move into The Model where I will have a studio for the next two years. Although there is something exciting immediate about working in make-shift, back-of-the-van studios on the edge of the Atlantic for weeks at a time, there are benefits to a longer-term studio space where my practice can unfold. I look forward to seeing the nuances of how the landscape, culture and community of Sligo shift my thinking, my production, and the development of all strands of my creative process.
Where to find my work
You can explore my work on my website or through Instagram. Join my newsletter if you would like a drop of colour research in your inbox every once and a while, or if you’d like to know more about my projects and events. If you prefer real-life interactions, I invite you to visit my studio.
This drastic, clean-cut deprivation and our complete ignorance of what the future held in store, had taken us unawares; we were unable to react against the mute appeal of presences, still so clear and already so far, which haunted us daylong … The plague forced inactivity on them, limiting their movements to the same dull round inside the town, and throwing them, day after day, on the illusive solace of their memories. For in the aimless walk they kept on coming back to the same streets and usually, owing to the smallness of the town, these were streets in which happier days, they had walked with those who now were absent …
And the narrator is convinced that he can set down here, as holding good for all, the feeling he personally had and to which many of his friends confessed.
It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile – that sensation of a void within which never left us, the irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire.
Albert Camus, The Plague p.60, 1947
‘Mood 1: Suspension’ from ‘The Timelapse’. (c) Letizia Lopreiato
Of trauma and of the exile from self and the world we once knew …
My handcrafted trauma therapy
I only recently got back to this book, and how strongly these pages resonate with my tireless work to bring to life my “Timelapse” project experience during this time of self-isolation. It has left me speechless. A poet left with no words, almost ironic in fact … These words truly have been marked by an imposed distancing from all things social so beloved to me, which is starting to feel quite painful at times whilst all these photos and all those words and all these memories have no other place for now, other than the walls of my apartment …
This book was left to me by a good friend, one of Dublin’s main characters if you ask me. He was working at “Dublin’s best kept secret café” as the signs says, right behind one of my favourite bookshop. Paco knew, I remember the first day I went there, I just felt his humanity. And so since then I came back every day, my refuge in time of pain and sorrow whilst traveling back and forth, at one stage even every week, and for over a year, in between so many spaces, so many memories … Paco knew I was exhausted but he also knew I had a story tell, letting me write, taking photos for hours in the garden. Always the same seat, by the corner, where it was safe for me to hide. One day he came to me with a flower and a glass of bubbly with a strawberry, a big smile, which would have cheered the entire city up. He just knew though I never told him what was happening. He knew now I know, because we have all, for one reason or another, from the ones we love, the ones far from what we knew as an anchor to our self, we have all been there, in that no man’s land that trauma throws you on. Like a massive wave it carries you to a foreign land. It is a shore, you just can’t see the rest of the island … yet. For many years the sensation of exile following the death of my father truly followed me too, just like the narrator in The Plague, until I arrived home. Ireland, Dublin, its magical people, its incredible feeling of community, allowed me to be present, to slow down, to feel my own thoughts. Thoughts that I have had for so long but that I could not hold the energy to engage with, it was like I couldn’t handle the intensity of them for so long, until when It finally felt like I had no escape from the awareness of them, if I truly want to make through it and still be myself.
Paco left me this book the day before he left, after almost twenty years in Dublin, to return to his home town. A return I could never see for myself, as Ireland is already home, it truly always had been for me since I first came here as a kid to practice English. I just knew it was where I belonged, this magical land where healing is led by the creative force of its nature, if you only allow it to flow through you. And thankfully now my mum is here, she is back home too. Her healing began when she asked me for help two years ago, up to then she tried everything in her power not to “disrupt” my life she said. When the only thing I could have asked for, what I was waiting for, was for her to be ready to let me in, and be present. I have never seen myself as the type person living so close to their family, I always aimed to live abroad. I never felt at home in my country, never like I have always done here. But one thing is to choose not to, another thing is to feel you can’t reunite with what you feel as family, simply because trauma took it away, because the losses became unbearable, because the world you knew, the life you had, simply ceased, simply leaving you wondering around like a ghost amongst ghosts, haunted by the sensation of feeling betrayed by life somehow … Losing faith in the unexpected, in the positive, fearing any new beginning, perpetually condemned to relive that painful past, which is always so present, over and over again.
Love does not equal hurt, it might equal pain, so does life, because that is what life means, it makes us feel. The state of being frozen, collapsed in one’s own perception of constant risk, as if the entire world is aiming to hurt us sooner rather than later if we only allow it. It is that dimension whereby expressing feelings equals weakness, the “better be numb and selfish” mentality, rather than admitting we still feel too hurt. When we think nobody cares anymore, as everybody moved on, somehow, with their lives. Everybody but us … It is hard to dismantle false beliefs, put there to protect us in the first place, when by nature we are drawn to think firstly of all negative possible consequences to our actions. We are animals after all, and nature is something to be feared, the unexpected is a threat, and it can only be fought back, by staying constantly alert.
‘Mood 2: Anxiety’ from ‘The Timelapse’. (c) Letizia Lopreiato
Getting out of the hole in which we stick ourselves in whilst experiencing trauma, and where we ourselves decide to remain even after the event, is because of the self-complacency bubble, the of victimhood, which is way too easy to live in versus the admission of being always able to save ourselves, which does requires effort, accountability and above all which involves the need to learn (or to learn again), to be response-able.
It might be not what we really want to do what matters in this case, to me at least, it has been more a case of, “did I really feel like leaving that state”, and for this, timing is crucial and it is different for each and every person.
In this story, I needed to reach rock bottom, and so did my mum, to realise, to feel, that we weren’t betrayed, that trauma has always been there as the most precious healing opportunity, in its pain and apparent unfairness.
And so surely this is a long way of saying, the way to healing, it requires a choice, and this choice should be recognised as growth, and not as threat, it requires awareness, and awareness to grow, it needs a fearless space, which can only be built through gentleness, compassion, self-love and loads of self-respect, for our need for safety and security, to finally be met. Because fear means resistance, and within resistance, change is nor recognised as growth, but a self-inflicted pain, chaos, anxiety, which becomes the only comfort zone.
It is possible to rewrite our story, at any moment, anywhere you are. And each and everyone’s story is always different, but that is the thing, this is not a competition about who had the worst in life. And I won’t go into the details of what exactly happened to me because it is not what I believe the value of sharing this experience is. This is just one experience, one story, which has been sitting in my room making me almost unable to breath properly at night when looking at all those photos hanging on my wall. Every day, I have been reliving the feeling of all those memories, It wasn’t pleasant, but I knew it was “a storm I had to face” to find my land, to find peace. Writing this piece, I have started reflecting on why this was happening, and what this creative process has meant for me. Reflecting on where I stand now after all this, and why I was resisting looking at how this crisis, this storm, changed me and led me to feel love again, to open my heart again.
I was risking stagnation, the elephant was not even just in my apartment, it was sitting on my chest wherever I was going before I embraced this experience and let it flow through me … My shadow was there, asking me to look at it and become friends. And so I did, I befriended my demons, I accepted my shadow, and now I am at peace. And my mum is on her way to heal too, embracing the last phase of her life, leaving the sensation of shame, of guilt, of abandonment that trauma shuffles you with when not explored, when not embraced.
This process to me, the one of embracing my shadow, as my dear Jung would have defined it, it has been the highest lesson that self-love could have led me to.
And I did it through art. Art for me has not only meant survival, art has brought meaning to my life, without which in all likelihood, I would not be here to tell this story.
My mum is now starting her first ever art therapy course, as well as her English classes, encouraged by how therapeutic this project has been to her too. Her reactions passed from outburst of irritation, to laughter, to surprise when looking at herself in this project’s photos. Hanging on my walls for the past month and a half since lockdown started, there are the photos of the incredible journey within of two women, out of their roles of mother and daughter, two friends, coming back home, home to themselves, and to one another.
‘Mood 3: Grief’ from ‘The Timelapse’. (c) Letizia Lopreiato
A journey of self-healing, of self-empowerment.
If we would only choose to be present, to gift our time when we sense discomfort, within us and in others, if we would only train our hearts and our minds to hold that space, the space needed for everybody to share their stories of difficulty, of pain, of trauma, of guilt, of shame even … This world would be a better place, a place for empathy, a place for self-acceptance and for truth, rather than a comfortable fiction dimension with “positivity 24/7” as one solution fitting all purposes.
We have our own unique narratives. But it is important always to keep in mind that history is shaped by those who tell the story.
So why not being ourselves, to tell our story? To share our truth? To reshape our narrative?
“Nobody better than you could depict your feelings”, John Gunn, another Dublin’s icon if you ask me, once told me to encourage me to start taking photos of myself in order to portray my poems. This was instead of my original choice to find a photographer for this purpose.
In Trauma Therapy from a somatic approach, we study that in order to heal from trauma, what needs to be guided is a work reconnecting one’s images, feelings, meaning, expression, actions and relationships. This is because of the disconnection that trauma creates, and which fractures one and / or many of these links.
If you would ask me what photography helped my mum and I with, I would tell you:
Using photography along with poetry and reflective journaling, helped the reconnection through images, of the meaning of our feelings, to find a reason and closure for our actions, and even for the hurtful actions of others. It allowed us, to give ourselves a path towards forgiveness.
It has represented a free form of expression for our relationship with ourselves, with what happened and with one another.
Art in the form of what I call “my handcrafted art therapy during lockdown”, truly allowed for this reconnection to start happening.
This film photography and poetry project, titled “The Timelapse”, is the result of the last two-and-a-half years of documentary work, which felt more like an exploration, and a deep dive into the experience of trauma, bereavement and all its consequences for the mind, the body and surely the spirit.
The consequences created by the unexpected sudden void which opens under our feet when death knocks at the door. Death, as well as love, triggers within us the more primordial fears, but also the most shining of all glimmers: the one of hope, the one of happiness, the one of that on-going learning process that is the letting go of what has already happened, and which is no longer with us.
No matter how long we feel we should wait and hold on to the memory of it, how long we feel we should do so, to honour its prior existence … It is a call for the acceptance of the inevitable change that is the jump into the unknown after the experience of loss that has to be embraced to start healing. That beginning of a new cycle in life, where, luckily, everything has already changed, us included, no matter how long it takes for us to admit that.
We grew. We evolved. It was painful, it was harsh, but it did happen. No matter how long we chose to numb ourselves for, by trying not to look in that mirror. Trauma equals change.
Trauma is that breaking point, for the no-return to the ones we once were. In its toughest form and shape it is the deepest of all lessons, it is there for us to learn, once and for all, to avoid stagnation.
Resistance to the inevitable change that trauma imposes translates into stagnation for the spirit, for the mind, an intoxication for the body, that is desperately trying to follow up with a mind that can’t fit the memories of the experience anymore into any of the drawers which once were so orderly, storing the reality we knew before the event. It is a shock to our system.
This project and deciding to finalise and release it during lockdown anyways, with a digital launch instead of a physical one originally due at The Darkroom, here in Dublin, on April 30th, for Poetry Day Ireland, it was surely a journey of exploration for both myself and my mum.
A deep dive into the the ocean of those memories which truly didn’t fit with any of own or my mum’s drawers anymore. The cabinet of our hearts and of our minds needed to create a new filing system. I write poetry in outbursts, an uncontainable impulse, I feel it as a real need for me to maintain my mental health, rather than an aesthetic exercise. Only recently I started remembering what I write, and this I believe happened because the work of matching poetry with photography allowed me to finally reconnect my mind, my heart, and my spirit.
Before starting using film photography, I used to write, fill diaries with my poetry, and never open them again. Almost like my poems were truly some little creatures which I was growing until they came of age when they could be let out and about in the world and out of my mind.
‘From the Front’ from ‘The Timelapse’ (c) Letizia Lopreiato
I only now realise that I wasn’t taking proper care of them once I released them into the world though, I have realised this now through a deep self-love journey, that I was probably scared of them somehow, scared to see what parts of me I was releasing into the world, scared of what they truly meant to me. Of what they have been representing of me. Basically I realised that there is a lot of “fear of self” in the mere fact of not wanting to be fully accountable about my own art and in not having wanted it to become a final product until now, an independent creature.
I have realised I was afraid of losing control of my own fears, my deepest and most guarded secret instincts. A fear that my sensitivity will not be protected if it is released into the world. It was fear and guilt about creating my own Frankenstein, releasing it into the world and then abandoning it with no protection in front of it, to be accepted in its diversity.
A fear I released fully and substituted with love and respect for myself and for my own creations during lockdown and thanks to this experience, and to all who supported me and believed in me and my art.
I am thankful above all, greatly thankful to life for having granted me this healing space and time.
In fact, I didn’t quite understand why It felt so natural since the very first photo I took with my one and only film camera, for me to feel the actual action of turning what I see and sense into an actual tangible creature which finally was freed from my mind.
‘When Travel Means Need’ Part 1, from ‘The Timelapse’ (c) Letizia Lopreiato
The creative process is like alchemy to me. It feels like alchemy. The transmutation of what once was mainly painful and almost unbearable, into light, into meaning, into a being which has a life of its own, for anybody who would like to take it by the hand and go for a walk with it, in the midst of their minds, their hearts, their spirits. It will be a companion for their journey, wherever they would like to be, whenever they might feel like it. It is and will be, always available, just like breath.
Photography has allowed me to understand, to slow down, always to look with the eyes of the heart, at a manageable pace, the one of the human being, the one of a creation which is and has to be one with nature to feel whole.
Any distance, any avoidance of that space we need as animals by default, deep within us, to hold understanding of our actions, based on the feeling of it, it translates into a disconnection which we can’t afford. Playing the disconnected ones leads us to not being held accountable not even to ourselves, for our actions, for our words, because if we feel love, we feel pain, we feel loss, we feel it all. Soon it is there to realise that this which seems to be an easier option, always comes at a price, but that whoever loves and cares for us will be the ones paying it, paying the price of our disconnection.
And if one thing, death, loss, or any trauma in itself, does teach anything, it is that being selfish in this journey means more pain, it means more death, it means more losses, and it means stagnation. It is the emotional resistance to the experience of a change that in our body, in our cells, in the chemistry of our being, has already happened that feeds the disconnection.
It is the way I liked to see it, and unfortunately I have learned the hard way, it is paramount to need to release the water, our emotions, to follow its flow. Because only water can carve mountains.
‘When Travel Means Need’ Part 2 from ‘The Timelapse’ (c) Letizia Lopreiato
PTSD, depression, anxiety, loss, death, the experience of bereavement itself, both experienced first-hand, as well as lived through the experience of my loved ones, only represented for me the desperate call of my heart to find home, to go back to its true identity, which I had to bottle up to feel safer. Just like we all do. Photography along with poetry and creative writing journaling filled the walls of my apartment now turned into an art studio with photos hanging on almost every wall, and filled the walls I had built within as well. The difference is that now, I can see it, I can see those walls, and they are not within me anymore.
At the highest stage of the disassociation that trauma had left me with over the past decade, I was almost feeling like I was creating different movies. In every city, evert country, every job I chose to engage with … Experiences that now feel like belonging to different lives, many different movies, that you almost can feel like you wanted to switch from or watch again, to jump in and out of the memory of them without being overly impacted by it as you were living with them in a detached way, to protect yourself, but that is not life. That is surviving. Survival mode made a life style.
It really is not fiction though, and eventually the realization that all those movies would be looking better as one, and that you truly need to find and hold the space within yourself to sit, and watch it all. You need to feel it all, as your own. Because it represents you, and there can be no shame, no guilt, no fear anymore, because you have always had a choice, to leave behind the victim’s cloak. And you do this with compassion, kindness, self-love and self-respect, whenever you have felt ready for it. Whenever you truly felt at home again, whenever you can trust that out it is safe out there again for your needs to be met, for your voice to be heard, for your feelings to be truly “seen” and welcomed.
To experience the fear, to feel the pain, and to find freedom, once again. To be at one with yourself, and with all that is around you. Because independence does not equal loneliness and others can and want to be there and meet our needs, with patience, with time, with real love, with genuine care, if we choose to let them in. All levels of trauma, from childhood to adulthood leave us with the feeling of not being able to choose a way out. Being gentle with ourselves and one another, doing all in our power to show empathy, to feel tolerance, to experience connection as many times per day as we can. Write down the sensations, carry a diary, note it down on your phone, just remember, remember what it feels like to be present, once again. Out of your mind, into your body. There is always time to breath.
With light and respect,
Letizia Lopreiato June 2nd, 2020
‘Mood 4: Suspension’ from ‘The Timelapse’. (c) Letizia Lopreiato
These below are some references for the curious minds, to my learnings in regards to the perspective I gained whilst researching on trauma therapy, from a somatic psychotherapy approach:
The Polyvagal Theory, Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation (2011), Stephen W. Porges, published by W. W. Norton Company, NY, United States
The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe (2014), Stephen W. Porges, published by W. W. Norton Company, NY, United States
Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (2018), Stephen W. Porges and Deb Dana, published by W. W. Norton Company, NY, United States
The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, Deb Dana, published by W. W. Norton Company, NY, United States
I am a visual artist based in Istanbul. I was born in 1979 in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. I studied painting at Hacettepe University in Ankara, graduating in 2003. As a student I was mostly influenced by abstract expressionism. I also began to use installations and video art. These three media are now my visual language.
I came to Istanbul in 2004, moving into my aunt’s house while she was living elsewhere. There I carved out a studio. During those first years I developed installations and even had my work displayed in prestigious exhibitions.
I was quite satisfied with life, even though I was broke financially. But since I wasn’t paying rent I could carry on working in the studio. After a while though I started taking freelance jobs as a storyboard artist for TV commercials, and moved with an advertising crowd, working for big agencies in Istanbul, which meant I could take care of myself.
Unfortunately, after a while, I found I had no time to create my own material, as I had begun working full time for an agency. My life was heading in a direction I wasn’t satisfied with. Then I went travelling, returned, worked again, becoming a freelance producer, and directed some movies. But I was unsure of what I was doing with my life until 2010.
Then I quit the advertising world for good and became a fulltime artist. Initially, I really struggled to shift my mindset into thinking about what I was doing creatively as a business too. So the first years after leaving commercial work were slow, and I struggled to be creative.
I didn’t find it easy to be alone in front of the canvas. It took a long time to get going, but over the course of the last five or six years I have been able to create more satisfactorily. I have displayed some of my work in group shows, and also had solo exhibitions.
A New Language of Expression
I have developed a new visual language, all of my own, and created a series of installations in this manner. This included creating stained glass windows, made out of PET plastic bottles I recovered, that appear like paintings. I replaced glass with PET plastic to raise environmental awareness, contradicting how these materials are generally used.
My subject-matter is often the harm and destruction humanity inflicts on its surroundings, or other traumatic issues occurring in our time, such as the refugee crisis and homelessness. I try to make long-lasting artworks using plastic material which isn’t biodegradable in nature. Likewise, these artworks aim to last long in any viewers’ consciousness.
Also by simulating the atmosphere of a church or cathedral, I try to make a powerful impact on the audience. In some of the installations I am not showing simply a painting as an art object, but also use light beams to create churchlike-effects. This causes the original work to create another painting reflecting on the wall opposite. For example in my ‘Refinery of Light’ piece I created a projection mapped specifically to the contours of the work to create unpredictable patterns on the gallery wall.
Tough Times
2019 was a tough but educational year for me. I’ve been through deeply emotional experiences, struggling to come to terms with the end of a relationship, which eventually brought me face to face with my identity and subconscious. Losing a beloved one, I have felt very alone.
In this era I recommenced painting as a way of dealing with my troubles, questioning my whole being, including my dark side.
I have always wondered why I use painting as a form of visual expression. During this period painting fitted very well with my condition. First and foremost the process itself was one of the quickest ways of satisfying my hunger to create.
I find painting keeps me simultaneously in a meditative and an emotional state, bringing focus to the issues I contend with, including who am I; why am I doing what I do; and what is my aim and mission in life. These paintings kept me busy in this emotional state, which is what I needed.
Otherwise, in solitude, I develop certain obsessive-compulsive tendencies that are produced by stress, or feelings of sadness: then I generate perverse habits and self-destructive mechanisms.
Rather than falling into these habits I replace these with a new attitude towards life, and ways of thinking.
Sound and Vision
As I painted those pieces I was listening to specific songs over and over, for weeks on end. I started building the structure of the painting from the references of the sound that I was hearing, continually tracing lines and gestures.
This appears first in ‘Mahler Variations’ as I attempted to simulate the instruments in creating the visual structure of the painting. Then I let the panting ask me what it required, until it matured sufficiently.
Those paintings were like visual reflections of a dance performance. The canvas was my stage and the painting was my movement during the performances. I also recorded myself on video as I painted.
After a period listening to classical music I would then begin listening to a totally contradictory genre such as black metal for two months. Then there would be a long period of Indian classical music and so forth for each piece.
So these works can be seen as a chart of a depressive era, during which I descended into my subconsciousness. I should add that I always made my most successful works when I felt pressure on my shoulders, and was out of my comfort zone.
Under Lockdown
For any artist this period of isolation is nothing unfamiliar. Solitude brings you closer to your inner self. Artists are personalities who are living in solitude inside the community.
In my case, at forty-one-years of age, I think I am at a critical stage in life, and feel under pressure to realise my gifts.
Honestly, I always think that none of my pieces are good enough, compared to what I feel I am capable of, but lately I have been feeling that I should be more thankful for what I have received from life so far.
Now that we all are forced to stay at home and isolate from one another we have to think about how much comfort and luxury we are accustomed to. We shouldn’t view this as a handicap, but more like a gift for a short period of time, where we start to realize how greedy, spoilt and arrogant most of us are in our lifestyles.
Yes, it is hard to be suddenly changing our daily routines, but we need to adapt our minds to feel and discover who we really are, and what is most important to us. This situation puts many of us in a very hard position emotionally, psychologically and financially. It also threatens our health, but these limitations also create the pressure which leads to creativity and evolution.
In fact artists voluntarily create these conditions to produce their works of art. So in a way there’s a similarity between the current situation and the creative process itself. We should use the time as a healing process to wake up from the artificial, materialistic and selfish way of life we are accustomed to. This is the best time to discover ourselves, and call back our souls to take over for the rest of our lives.
F***ing Money
It think it is appropriate to finish this piece by referring to an installation I created in 2018 called ‘F***ing Money’, which was a sculpture replicating a cash machine inside a gallery space.
The actual artwork is not the sculpture but what happens to it. I put a motion sensor in the room which triggers a mechanism. Whenever a viewer gets close to the artwork the mechanism shoots out a tiny jet of water onto the sculpture, eroding it bit by bit. Eventually it collapsed.
I also exhibited the demolition on video 24/7 from the gallery window in loops on public display. The idea was a reflection on values, interests, labour and on the price we put on the what we create.
Poiesis, from the Ancient Greek: ποίησις meaning knowing by making, is ‘the activity in which a person brings something into being that did not exist before.’[i]
It is the process of shaping as opposed to doing. It is not imposed; it is a process of listening; of working with. In an interview with Meredith Monk on her process she said, ‘I have to keep following it, and see what it needs.’[ii]
When we shape we are in dialogue with material, not merely self-expressing, but also being open to the unexpected, tapping into what some call ‘flow’; something beyond the self.
Origins
When I first moved to Ireland in 2002, I studied fine art in KCAT, an art centre with an inclusion policy where people with artistic talent, regardless of neurotypical or diverse definitions, all studied together. It meant my introduction to the stance taken by second level art education was inclusive, and never elitist.
I then moved to Dublin to study photography at Griffith College and pursue a longstanding dream to become a photographer. Having been introduced to photography at the age of ten, by twelve I was developing my own film and printing photos in the dark room.
I loved the tangibility of photography, and so the rise of digital photography initially brought heartache; I continued to crave the craft element. One of the ways I experimented was in creating sculptural photography, but it felt as if I had to make a hard case for it within my photography course.
I was on the road to completing my degree, while at the same time working for a youth service in the inner city, teaching cooking and setting up a community garden.
All the while attending exhibition openings and getting a taste of Dublin’s art scene, I was aware that the children and adults I was meeting through my work were not exposed to the galleries I was visiting, nor were they necessarily spaces in which they would have felt welcome.
My final photographic project was about the changing structure of family life in Ireland, and the gaps in legal services to represent their interests. By the end of the degree I came to realize that as much as I loved working with art, pursuing it as a solo career was not going to be enough. I wanted to learn more about bridging the two worlds of art and community.
Expressive Art Therapy
A month after graduating I began an MA in Expressive Arts Therapy (EXA) at The European Graduate School. I felt an immediate connection to the philosophy of EXA and its method of practice. EXA embraces intermodality, working with multiple forms within one session.
Suddenly my impulse for tangible photography needed no explanation. As with other therapy styles, the therapist creates a frame of trust by providing an environment free of judgment where a client feels held. With EXA, however, the element of art is what moves us into action.
The arts provide a safe container for the unknown to emerge, as we step away from linear thought patterns to discover the new. We suffer when we feel paralyzed and hopeless, and when what we perceive as possible feels restricted. Working with the imagination creates unrestricted openings wherein we feel empowered and excited to move into action.
‘Who the city belongs to?’ Print on wood with nails and thread. This work was made in July 2019 out of frustration with the current housing crisis.
In 2010, I co-founded Expressive Arts Ireland with my parents, both of whom are expressive art therapists. Since then we have been facilitating professional and self-development workshops and collaborating with international universities.
Initially, while working with the intermodal approach our core subjects differed; my own photography; my father’s storytelling; and my mother’s nature; nowadays one flows into the other.
Environment
It has become increasingly important for me to work with nature. Natural disasters around the world had been overwhelming me to a point of despair and numbness.
Last September we decided to offer a weekend workshop integrating arts and nature. We worked with people’s inherent connection to nature, and in doing so broke down some of the boundaries separating ourselves from nature.
By focusing on personal and individual stories we are reminded of human resilience which builds hope. Working with nature, we see ourselves as an intrinsic part of it, neither separate nor opposed.
This thinking leads to new behaviour, which in turn leads to change; this leads to empowerment and ultimately system change. By regaining faith we foster the power to move into action.
Curating
As well as working with Expressive Arts, I have also worked for community organizations and charities. In recent years I became an outreach facilitator for artists with autism, promoting participation and inclusion through the arts by curating exhibitions and supporting their careers.
With Autism Initiatives I curated and coordinated a group show at the Mermaid Arts Centre in 2018 called INSIDEOUT / MAKERS, as well as an exhibition and associated publication entitled ‘Bringing About The New’, at The Lexicon Library in 2019.
I am currently working independently with one of the artists from the group, who will launch his first solo show in 2021. At each exhibition the works were carefully handled, beautifully framed and presented, enhancing and fostering the artists’ pride and self-regard.
How we respond to what is made and how we take care of it is no less valuable than the process of creation. Notably, artists revisiting the show following its opening related differently to the public space as they now felt a sense of ownership over it.
Art spaces which promote diversity are beneficial to all members of society, as we advance through exposure to a wide range of views and experiences. Any progressive society must challenge prevailing understandings of value and ability. Art spaces can be forerunners in advocating for diversity.
Art is an amazing communication tool for social change, with the capacity to convey messages through metaphor and by invoking emotional and contemplative responses. Through art we can work with what connects, rather than separates, us from one another.
This performance took place in September, 2019 at a week long residential Body/Landscape workshop on Arranmore Island, Donegal, with the dancer and choreographer Frank van de Ven. At various locations on the island, and in particular at the fisherman’s dock, I encountered sculptures of Mary. I learned that the fishermen prayed before going out to sea, some of them not knowing how to swim. For me it drew a connection with the natural crisis; people sending their prayers yet not being called into action.
Art as an agent for change
Life for me is about asking questions; without interrogation there is little capacity for change. But to be in a position to ask ourselves profound, life-altering questions, we need to feel acknowledged, loved and accepted.
Only then can we embrace life’s uncertainties and provisionality. Art-making provides a frame within which we make sense of the world, while accessing an opportunity for shifts in thinking. William Kentridge describes his process as such: ‘The hope is the work itself will not just give you an answer, but even provide the questions and make connections you hadn’t thought of before.’[iii]
I believe the personal is political and that in making changes in our lives we are taking part in collective transformation around the world. Embodiment of this notion ignites a fire within us to take responsibility and a pride in our capacity to contribute to shape a healthy society.
I trust there are many others out there that desire and conceive of a better life for all. In supporting people to embark on an artistic journey through the expressive arts approach, and community engagement projects, I hope I am partaking in facilitating this global transformation.
[iii] William Kentridge, ‘Instructions on making sense of the world,’ Text by Kerri von Geusau, TLMag https://tlmagazine.com/william-kentridge-instructions-on-making-sense-of-the-world/
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”62″ gal_title=”Featured Artist of the Month: Maria Julia Goyena”]
‘Inner coherence is prior to artistic manifestation.’ Maria Julia Goyena
Wandering minstrels travelled through villages in the Middle Ages, telling stories with a book of archetypal images of the time in which they lived.
The pages came loose and they/we continued telling the stories, with the leaves now shuffled. The sense of using these images to foretell the future arrived later.
Another story, a different one, says that it was invented by the Egyptians and that Hermes Trismegistus had something to do with it.
They were, and we are, ‘The Fool’, because we are all born innocent and impulsive, and in our journey that is our life, we become ‘The World’. ‘The World’ represents an ending to a cycle of life, a pause in life before the next big cycle which began with ‘The Fool’. The ‘World’ is an indicator of a major and inexorable change.
Yes, Tarot is the story of a trip, of a journey, a story that is retold over and over again and which we continue to tell. It speaks for itself, it speaks of others too. It is the story with stories inside itself.
The origin of Tarot, as those things that are always with us, remains mundane and mysterious at once. It continues, and resignifies itself without ever aging. Because of its particular and universal imaginary it continues to be a channel of our dreams and nightmares, desires and anxieties, like everything that has a living spirit in it.
Tarot reflects and narrates our selves, becoming true ‘cultural memes’ at the cost of being redundant. These are images that we transmit without even being aware of when they began.
We don’t have them in our DNA. We transmit them because we carry the idea with us, like the wheel, like a chair… things that were invented in different civilizations or in other times without having contact with each other.
My particular look, my particular antenna emitting information and my universal antenna that receives it, catalyse these images and unify them in this Tarot. A little new look with its own soul. Mixed.
Besides, memory edits and editing, as Pasolini has said, is poetry.
By constantly editing, our memory reinvents reality poetically. Our subjectivity tints our gaze and we build out of our dreams a concrete reality. That is the power of dreams. It is believed that because they are ungraspable, they are less real. But of course this is the trap, this is why they are so elusive sometimes. And of course that is why it is essential to know which base element feeds our dreams. The external reality is the dream constructed by others, when I (anyone) meets the other realities, generating new information. Art, Collage, Education: these things are a metaphor for what surrounds us; as Aristotle would say, ‘we lie to tell the truth’ by putting veils in art.
What does this mean? It means the obvious. It means that we generate images that anchor them in the deep meaning of what we want to say, but they are images, they are poetry, they are colour, they are metaphors, therefore they are “lies.” But what they never are is dishonest… And as the inner coherence is prior to the artistic manifestation, we know that they are the result of an internal alchemy, their balance dynamic.
And then my memory appears…
Memory: a collage.
You remember a smile, a look.
You remember what clothes someone had on …
or
You remember what is not said.
Therefore, and because the editing is the poetry of the story, I compose and configure myself, because it is my memory that invents me.
That’s what I’m actively living … my edition.
I am my sense.
I am my small and humble self and they are my worlds that I share.
Tarot: body intuitions and a book of free pages. Always poetry in images.
This is my hybrid, my own beautiful monster and humble servant who collaborates with the other owner of a truth that may be clear or may be cryptic. It doesn’t matter … it’s a challenge!
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”60″ gal_title=”Featured Artist of the month: Doireann Ni Ghrioghair”]
There is many a country that has decided to establish a capital city with grandeur, efficiency and unity of the central government. In ancient times, urban planning was pursued in Egypt, in a large number of cities in China, Greece and Rome. There are examples of this today in Washington, New Delhi, Ankara and Canberra. There is no need to tell why the location of Tara is suitable from the historical point of view. But there are many other recommendations, which make it suitable as the Capital of Ireland. It is in the centre of the country (25 miles from Dublin; Belfast, 78; Derry, 127; Limerick, 99; Tralee, 159; Sligo, 106; Athlone, 72; Kilkenny, 94). It would satisfy the people of Belfast, who have a congenital hatred of Dublin, as a city of conflict and not only as a capital: it would break the alien influence of the people of Rathmines, Rathgar and the Royal Irish Academy on the persons of the Government of Ireland. Therefore, it would not be too far “at all”, from Dublin, and it would not oblige all the officials of the Government to be brought from Dublin nor from Belfast. The new city of Tara would not be removed from rural life, as is Dublin, and it would be a clear sign that we have left for good, the old-bad-days that we have had during the seven centuries, during which we were under the heavy yoke of England; may it be our intention, sincerely, to build a new epoch in Ireland for ourselves.
Daithí Ó hÁinle
extract from ‘Maoidheamh ar Árd-Cathair Stáit I dTeamhair’,
Áiserighe 1942 – published by Ailtirí na hAiséirghe *translated by Paddy Greer
Ailtirí na hAiséirghe (Architects of the Resurrection) were an Irish fascist political party active in the 1940’s They envisioned a united Ireland where emigration as well as the speaking of the English language would be banned. Highly conservative and religious, they also saw women’s role as to produce as many offspring as possible in order to form a large army and imagine Ireland rising as a supreme leading nation after all other countries had been decimated during World War II.
‘Maoidheamh ar Árd-Cathair Stáit I dTeamhair’ (Declaration of the State Metropolis at Tara) by the architect Daithí Ó hÁinle appeared in one of their regularly published periodicals and included ‘Speer-esque’ urban planning and buildings such as a ‘National Avenue’, a stadium, ‘A Garden of Heroes’ and a ‘Column of the Resurrection.’ Later in his career, Ó hÁinle would progress on to be an architect for Dublin City Council, as well as designing the Garden of Remembrance and the Basilica at Knock.
In an age where ideology is becoming increasingly polarised, the rise of the right-wing normalised, open racism and bigotry espoused by world leaders, this way of thinking can no longer be dismissed, however bizarre sounding.
In a new series of sculptures made as resident artist at the College of Architecture & Engineering, UCD as part ofParity Studios, I presents a dystopian vision based on Ó hÁinle’s plans, that aim at interrogating notions of Irishness and national identity, particularly coming up to more centenary commemorations and Brexit.
A very special thank you to John Ryan, School of Civil Engineering, UCD.
Around four years ago I completed a drawing inspired by a childhood dream featuring a landscape of balloons, floating boats and orange trees. I then shared it on social media and a friend, Sam Clague, messaged me asking if he could use it for an EP he was releasing called ‘Balloons’. I hadn’t considered the idea of my work being used as cover art until that point. I loved Sam’s music and the music he sent me for the EP seemed to fit the mood of the drawing perfectly, so I said yes.
A year or so later I moved to Dublin, where I befriended Brían and Diarmuid of Ye Vagabonds. They liked what I had done for Sam and eventually asked me to do the cover for their first album ‘Ye Vagabonds’. This led to many further collaborations over the following years.
I found when a musician came to me with an idea, or with an example of the sound and atmosphere of their release, that the image emerged very easily. It also helped if I loved the music.
Music and art have always existed in the same world for me. The mood and melody of the music guides my hand, determining the mood and atmosphere of whatever I am working on. When I really connect with the songs, it doesn’t even feel like I am doing any work. I just listen and paint. The colours and the mood are already in the song.
I started painting after my first year studying architecture. I hadn’t really done anything artistic up to that point. The architecture degree I took in the University of Limerick had a significant influence on my visual sensibility, and liberated alternative ways of thinking creatively. In the beginning I would lie in bed listening to ambient music or psychedelic rock and discover colours and shapes coming into my mind’s eye for each song. Then the following morning I would set about drawing the imagery I recalled from that semi-conscious state.
Various elements of my childhood and life interests have influenced my practice. I grew up around a lot of religious imagery in Catholic churches and convents. I remember going to mass and zoning out staring at stained glass windows. My father introduced me to Byzantine iconography when I was very young, instigating an interest in ancient art, particularly Egyptian hieroglyphs and medieval illustrations and tapestries.
I usually build up my work with layer upon layer of dots and colour. Through this chaos I find an order. If I am doing something that isn’t working, I just paint over it with a new layer of dots. I see the dots almost as pixels that allow me to organically control the evolution of the image into its finality.
I think my work is usually highly detailed because of my interest in fractals and the infinite detail of reality. So at times I find it hard to know where to draw the line (pun intended) in terms of detail.
Recently I have started collaborating with the musician Gareth Quinn Redmond, a recent and dear friend of mine. We connected over a mutual love of ambient/environmental music. I brought some paintings over to his house and he wrote music inspired by them.
It was a new departure to engage in this collaborative process, where I was involved in the music’s development and genesis through back and forth conversations with Gar. I usually make art to music that I am listening to, but this time there was a musician writing music to my art. It was fascinating to be almost inverting the process I was used to. Our first EP ‘Monachopsis’ was released on the 20th of September this year.
The Dublin Red Squirrel was taken down last week. I’m not mad about that as I’m the first one to say that my work is ephemeral, just like everything in life. I also incentivate [sic] progress, rebuilding when necessary, the use of dead areas of towns to make something better, the rehabilitation of the abandoned to give a new life to the city, definitely that’s the right way if it respects the environment and the local culture.
I’m just sad that that company didn’t keep their word and didn’t wait until Tuesday as had been agreed, because we were making a special plan try to move the piece to a new location and document all the process.
(Instagram post from b0rdalo-ii, August 6th, 2019)
That was the Portuguese artist Bordalo II’s reaction to the removal of his installation from Tara Street, Dublin: a massive red squirrel on the window-less side of walls next to Tara Street DART Station. The simple and predictable reason for this sad amputation is the building of a new hotel on the same site.
The Red Squirrel is part of a series call ‘Trash animals’ spread over twenty-four countries. These are intriguing and provocative installations of endangered species, constructed from discarded products; scrap we don’t need any more, but which are destined to last forever, and contribute to the extinction of these animals.
Damaged bumpers, burnt garbage cans, and discarded tyres are among the materials that stimulated the artist’s inventiveness. He has transformed these into the shapes of a fox, an ostrich, a stork, a bear, a possum, a racoon, and a lemur. Whether walking through Paris, Los Angeles or Pattaya, it’s better you don’t know when you are going to come across one of these.
You are greeted by massive, curious creatures: first their vibrant colours from huge murals; after that you make out the ropes and chicken wire used to fabricate hair, the bicycle frames used for bodies, the ball bearings for eyes, and then the appliances and plastic fencing shaping their expressions.
Bordal II began his career as a graffiti artist, but as he matured, felt a need to express his disgust with the environmental problems of our time. He was inspired, and challenged, by the classical art world, in particular that of his grandfather, Real Bordalo. This brought out new creative processes – active, laborious, and multi-technical – what he calls ‘free-style.’
He situates his pieces in abandoned places, recycling centres, car body shops, hidden streets; from a simple sketch he begins cutting, drilling, assembling, and finally spray-painting.
The Dublin Red Squirrel
The Dublin Red Squirrel project was developed in collaboration with filmmakers Trevor Whelan and Rua Megan, who filmed Bordalo II for two years, bringing him to Dublin, creating with the producer Glenn Collins memorable footage of his installations around Europe in an acclaimed short movie called: ‘Bordalo II: A Life of Waste.’
Bordalo II chose the red squirrel for Ireland as the animal has been under serious threat of extinction from deforestation and a virus carried by the non-indigenous grey squirrel.
The piece sends out an acute message, drawing attention to our wastefulness. Forming a creative dialogue with the city and its people, it became a much-loved and effective public art work.
On August 6th of this year, however, employees of Ronan Group Real Estate, or agents on their behalf, who are reconstructing the building, removed the installation, without warning, and despite a meeting with the filmmakers and the artist, where it had been agreed that they would film the demolition on an agreed date.
Bordalo II’s sculpture is a masterpiece of its kind, depicting an ongoing environmental crisis. It begs the question as to whether an art work such as this is really ephemeral, when the public take it into their hearts. Is a sculpture simply rubble and rubbish that can be disposed of at the whim of a builder, without considering the artist or those who appreciate it?
I wonder was this allowed to happen simply because no institution owned or funded it. Is it simply that patrons of the arts are only interested in the old masters and expressions of individual nations, allowing developers to demolish our contemporary inspirations?
This episode confirms the vision of the artist. The Red Squirrel has reverted to waste products, an experience that reminds us of our own endangered status, our own endangered art.
