What is Enviromental Art?

So, to anyone that is new here, says her to the millions of followers…not…lol…but it doesn’t matter because every person here is soooo welcome and I am soooo thankful for all the comments, likes and follows.

I thought I would explain a bit about my work, very briefly. My practice is concerned with preservation- the land, its historical reference; its language; its culture, and its ecology. Everything I believe in, forms who I am and thus informs my work. As an artist who lives and works on the border, I have come to realise that this ever-present psychogeography is apparent in my work and recognize how the effect of a geographical location can affect the emotions and behaviour of the individual. So, what I am trying to say is, without actually realising it, probably a year and a half ago when I started the project, is that I wanted to raise awareness about pollution and water conservation through this new body of work, Uisce Salach. By writing this blog, apart from putting down my thoughts onto paper and keeping a visual diary for myself and for you, I want to make the audience aware of water conservation and how nature-inspired art can promote environmental conservation. As beautiful as the work can be, it holds an underlying message, that we need to educate the masses on what is going into our rivers and water systems. So, what I am trying to say is that Uisce Salach is enviromental art.

Anyways, onto the visual side of things!!!

Of course, after experimenting with all that ink (see previous blog post), I knew I needed to added in some colour- just a contrast so as not to take away from the loveliness of the initial spreads of ink. Don’t ask me why I chose magenta, looking back now I think it is because I was looking at pollen samples underneath the microscope at the same time and I think this colour just permeated my brain if I am honest!!!

Pumpkin Pollen as seen from under a microscope

I found some torn up pieces of Fabriano paper- such a beautiful, beautiful watercolour paper and because the pieces were sort of ‘off set’ and not perfectly landscape, portrait or square, I wondered what they would like as collage pieces??? So I covered a few pieces of spare paper with different colours of acrylic and played about with oil pastels and posca pens.

I really LOVED how these pieces worked out and included them in my exhibition proposals for my solo shows for this year. Isn’t it a pity that I did a workshop in Dublin then and left them behind me, at my a*s* never to be seen again…sobs…