Landscapes of the Self
‘Landscapes of the Self’ is a series of photos documenting the strange and shifting relationship I have with my homeland - the rural west of Ireland.
Through the practice of earth-embodiment, I explore ways to connect with the Irish landscape - a place brimming with wonder, beauty, mystery… and decay.
The act of creation serves as an empathetic process - a conversation with the living world around me.
It is also a process of opening - by opening myself up to various points of view, I observe myself as a part of the living world around me. The work speaks not only to my personal feelings for the wild, but also to broader themes of rupture, reclamation and intuitive longing.
Each image has a poem or story attached to it. I have included parts of them in the titles. Some are purely whimsical, some are of the soul, but all are ‘of the moment’.
To the naked eye, I am playing dress up with plants and finding peace in the wild. On a deeper level I am researching how poetry (visual or verbal) can provide healing for both humans and non-humans.
FORESTED
The spiralled vine loves a tree to climb.
And me, well, I am forested.
My mind plants roots
in things long past
grows leaves before the season.
DEEP REST
ON THE FENCE
CORONATION OF THE GORSE
BRANCHING OUT
THE ROCK
The rock I suffer and swear upon
is a resting place for the weary
This is where I lay my bones
to land a heart so heavy.
To sigh, to cry
to fall,
forget
the sadness of surrender.
FOR ÉIRE
Ireland
I am lost in your cool damp greenery
where ancient rocks relax on big fields
and sunset is a wild card
I wish to catch.
I’ll never truly know you,
though you call yourself my ‘turf’
I’ll never know another place so mysterious
and yet so safe, so sound.
BOGFOOT. A series of em-BOG-iments..
MAYHEM
ROOTED PROTECTION
THE LICHEN LIKES ME
