Flock (Leitrim Textured)
2024
graphite on cotton lab coats, Ash frame
810mmx 610mm
Installed in The Visitors at Butler Gallery, 2024 (Ornament below). Photographs by Ros Kavanagh courtesy of Butler Gallery.
Flock proposes a wallpaper for a Drawing Room, the exotic flora of razed Georgian walls replaced with a contemporary import – the invasive fungal pathogen Ash dieback disease. Brought to Europe from Asia in the early 90s, and first detected in Ireland in 2012, it is expected to cause the death of the majority of Ireland’s Ash over the next two decades. Collecting the fallen leaves of diseased trees, I designed a pattern for repeat and used it to make a rubbing of Leitrim Textured, a mass produced door made in one of Ireland’s largest manufacturing plants in Country Leitrim where Ash dieback was first discovered on plants imported from continental Europe. Now, using genotypes from 18 European countries, Teagasc forestry researchers are working across the estates of two former Georgian homes, studying their tolerance and suitability in helping to restore Ireland’s ash. In tribute, the wood effect of Leitrim Textured is impressed on handmade paper made from the pulped lab coats of scientific research.
The Visitors was developed thanks to the generous support of an Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary Award 2024, a Galway City Council Creative Practitioner Bursary 2024, with thanks to Dheeraj Rathore, Research Officer in Tree Improvement at Teagasc, and through a yearlong collaboration with Kunstverein Aughrim in 2024 made possible with the support of The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon.