Well, hello everyone, I’m back into blogland!!!
As I always say (and let me stress that this is only me), I always need a project, a concept, a ‘meaning’ to paint what I paint. A lot of abstract painters don’t and are just intrigued by colour, line and form and that is super fine but my brain is wired slightly differently and I always need a ‘subject’ to work from and then go through a lot of exploratory processes to finally come to the end result which ultimately is a painting, usually oil on canvas.
Anyways, about two years ago, I met Conor O’Reilly who is a Professor in Transnational Crime and Security at the School of Law, University of Leeds, through Twitter and our shared love of anything ‘border’ related. He bought one of my watchtower paintings and we got to chatting. To cut a long story short, he asked me and another colleague if we would like to collaborate on his latest project which focuses upon the study of Petro-Culture around the Illicit Fuel Economies to be found on the borders of Ireland and Mexico. Of course, I jumped at the chance as my practice is very much about preservation- the land; its historical reference, its language, its culture, and its ecology. Throughout history, the border has been well known for its illegal smuggling -butter, chocolate, cows, sheep…you name it, the Irish border can smuggle it…lol
First and foremost, I decided however that I needed to see these sites where the illegal fuel had been dumped and what they physically looked like. I had it in my mind that I would see loads of illegal green diesel just dumped at the side of the road and that I could just take samples of it that way…how naïve was I…
Ciarán (my partner in crime and photographic collaborator) had already spent years investigating the illegal dumping of toxic waste material, commonly referred to as ‘sludge’, by diesel launderers at sites along the Irish border between Counties Louth, Armagh and Down and he knew exactly where to visit. So, over two very hot days in June and August 2023, we met up, left our cars behind and drove his daddy’s very inconspicuous white Hiace van around the borders of north Louth and south Armagh and took some photographs. It was a bit hairy to say the least and had to jump very quickly back into the van a couple of times and leave when we were seen taking photographs, particulary in this area below where you will notice very, old ‘vacant’ sheds but with a brand new super, duper lock on the door…
