AIR Artist in Residence Kunsthalle Krems Austria - Germany - Netherlands - Belgium

During the residency at Kunsthalle Krems, In Austria I devised a method of collaborating, engaging with and developing knowledge  of the contemporary art practices within Austrian galleries, artist run spaces and academic platforms. Examining the contrasts and similarities between Austrian and Irish contemporary art practices. 

Throughout the residency I focused on investigating the role of art as dialogue and its use in public spaces. In particular the use of graffiti and guerrilla marketing by dissident and marginalised groups, a phenomenom I recognised very quickly while walking through Vienna. Using dialogue as a method for creating connections between myself and individuals from these groups. Discovering very quickly that they used these methods for spreading ideas, or challenging social or political issues. 

                          

Drawing from an already established practice I documented, through moving imagery, sound and photography the types of graffiti and guerrilla marketing that I found in  cities in each of the following countries - Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium

In each city I also met with and discussed the issues affecting specific groups or Syrian and Afghanistan refugees. Namely those young men who had migrated across Europe between 2014 - 2016. 

Documenting their lives and the issues which affect the men in each city. To create a living document of these migrations through Europe. The dialogues were based on each groups use of public spaces as well as focusing on the journey and types of transport use as they migrate across Europe.

Green Carnations 2012 - 2016

Green Carnations was a solo exhibition and wider body of work which dealt with a specific form of structural homophobia in Irish society. The research involved the historical and contemporary experiences of marginalised gay men in Ireland and documented the experiences of those men who will remain socially marginalised, despite the positive outcome of the same-sex referendum here in 2015.

Many Young Men of Twenty (Tabhair dom do lamh) Moving Image and sound piece 2015

During a series of Dialogical interactions with specific sub-groups within the LGBT communities. In which various public areas were identified and highlighted as having specific cultural or semantic significance for these groups.

I began to visit these various public spaces and initiated a documentary, observational and material investigation of these sites.

Referencing geo-psychology and heavily influenced by the writings of Michel Foucault on physical and emotional space. I began to explore these areas and record them through photography, drawing and moving imagery. Trying to evoke the isolation and alienation inherent in these experiences.

Photographic works on archival paper 210x297cm 2016

During this exploratory documentation, I began to note the context-specific graffiti which seemed to be in almost every space I visited. Daubed messages on bathroom walls, homophobic slurs and the specific visual languages of this hidden world.

In one particular site in the Phoenix Park, an area frequented by Gay men and an area synonymous with violent homophobic attacks. I identified a bench which had been daubed in an anti-homosexual slogan. I photographed the bench and returned several times over the next 4 years photographing it each time. During this four year period, the bench had been painted white and re-graffiti'd seven times. Clearly, the graffiti has been placed here by the same individual/s and what interested me here was the motivation for this targeted, passive and uniquely visual forms of homophobic attack

Phoenix Park Palari (Polari) A0 2014-2016

While investigating these disparate spaces. I was looking for an object or material that could link these areas. The one material that was identified was cigarette packets which had been discarded on the ground. In almost every site I visited I found Benson & Hedges cigarette packets. They were the single material which linked all of these spaces.  

The focal point of the work and the exhibition which was exhibited in the Linen Hall Arts Centre, Castlebar in 2015, involved a large floor installation made from the foil from these cigarette packets. I collected hundreds of packets and began to manipulate and reconstruct the foil. Finally settling on the motif of a polyhedron. Hundreds of these tiny gold forms were connected together in intricate patterns

Standing in the way of Control (Intrinsically Ordered) Floor installation 2016

To read more about this work. Follow this Link

These Are My People 2011 - 2017

The body of work entitled These Are my People began as a short story written after a chance encounter with a young traveller man on the Liffey boardwalk in Dublin in 2011. The full text of the short story can be seen here https://inthisnation.blogspot.co.at/2014/10/these-are-my-people.html.




in 2013 while living in Brighton, East Sussex, I began to follow and document the lives of a groups of Irish Traveller families, who used the public car parks along the south coast of England as temporary camps. I photographed and documented their lives for the short time that they stayed in the area.





During this time I was also able to document and create dialogue with a number of Irish men who had become homeless in the U.K and used the numerous shelters along Brighton' sea front to sleep in during the summer months.







Through observation and a series of dialogues with both groups I began to find similarities between their transient lifestyles and the performative action of creating temporary communities as well as observing the visual language relating to their ideas of identity and culture. The signs and signifiers which set them apart from not only each other but also the other people using these public areas.
After two and a half months of researching and documenting both groups. In one week both groups of people had disappeared. The Travellers had returned to Ireland, the Homeless men returned to cities North of Brighton. The latter could, as they told me "Never go home".





I wanted to create a visual work that would both, reference the intense and drawn out dialogical and observational process of the project, and also which acknowledged the fleeting transient nature of both groups' existence and the relationships which were built between them and I.

The works created were a series of clay heads which had all been cast from the same mold, but no two faces are the same.





A number of heads were installed in the spaces which had been occupied by either group. Over time the heads would dissolve, leaving only a faded, chalky outline on the surface where they were installed.





In 2015 I returned to Dublin and installed a series of interventions onto the board walk on the Liffey River. These involved a number of bottle caps. Which I noticed were being placed into the nuts and bolts which held the wooden beams of the boardwalk in place.

I used this very simple device to create a number of text based works using bottle caps painted white with a single letter on each one. Each installation spelled the words THESE ARE MY PEOPLE

Criminal Assets 2010 - 2017

Large diagrammatical drawing depicts the complex connections of the hundreds of men murdered between 2010 – 2017, as a direct result of their involvement with criminal gangs

The work evolved from dialogues with individuals who were connected to serious criminals in the city and the realisation that I was connected to serious criminal behaviour through my connections with these people.

The work was created for my degree show but has been an ongoing project due to the large numbers of men murdered each year

   

 

The work is usually exhibited with a series of moving images of violent acts on Irish streets, alongside carefully planned installations of found objects such as; bags used to transport heroin or the detritus left behind once drugs have been consumed or violence has taken place in public spaces.