A quiet practice of returning

I am a multidisciplinary visual artist working across painting, printmaking, artist books, sculpture and public art. My practice begins with a feeling that there is more here than we ordinarily notice.

I am drawn to the stories held within familiar forms, the traces of time and human presence in a landscape, and the unexpected ways that colour, pattern and scale can transform how we see and feel. My work moves between the recognisable and the abstract, the intimate and the expansive, often following recurring forms and connections between nature, memory, place and the unseen.

I recently came across the Japanese word shoshin, often translated as “beginner’s mind”: an openness to meeting the familiar as though for the first time, with curiosity, humility and wonder. It gave a name to something at the heart of my practice: a spiralling process of looking, making and returning, guided by curiosity and the sense that there is always more here than we might first perceive.

I am fascinated by the patterns and structures that recur throughout the natural world, from branching roots and veins to shells, circles and spirals, and by the possibility that the smallest detail might contain an echo of something much larger. Through layers of paint, recurring motifs and playful acts of making, I follow the threads between things, exploring how seemingly separate worlds might be connected.

My practice is intuitive and cyclical, moving between materials, ideas and ways of seeing. A landscape might lead to an abstract painting; a pattern might become a print; an image might find its way into a book, an object or a public space. I see these not as separate directions, but as different ways of following the same questions.

Alongside my studio practice, I work collaboratively with communities, young people and local groups, exploring how art can hold shared stories, deepen our relationship with place and create opportunities for connection.

Ultimately, my work is an invitation to look again: to find wonder in the everyday, to follow the connections that emerge when we pay attention, and to remain open to what we cannot yet see or fully understand.

There is something here. I’m still discovering what it is.

Recent projects:

My practice has taken me into public spaces, collaborative projects and artist book exhibitions, from a mural celebrating Athy’s heritage in Emily Square to the Earth Charter and eco-literacy projects with young people through Future Ancestor Festival and Creative Ireland.

My artist books have been exhibited at Malmö International Artist Book Biennial, BABE Bristol Artists Book Event and Greywood Arts in Cork.

My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in significant collections including the National Art Library at the V&A, London, and the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.