Shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize 2021 at the National Gallery of Ireland 2021 & Crawford Art Gallery 2022
'All I could do was sit & collect Dust. Dust is made up from parts of us and our surrounding environment. It holds information about our lives. I’ve noticed when I’m worried I pull at my beard. These hairs escape and are discarded, becoming one with the dust.
Hair follicles contain enough DNA of the person that an image can be recreated from it, whether we visualise it ourselves or have a computer generate an image. I couldn’t do anything for the 1st weeks of lockdown. It was just an endless expanse of time, everyday the same. I sat and thought about all the things around me. How our interests accumulate like dust collecting on a bookshelf too high to reach.
Books, photos, films and memories are all stored like ideas in the brain, all these things add to us, shaping us. The dust in my room is created from everything that creates me, and just like these objects, I too create dust. As these particles combine, it creates a portrait of me during this time, where I felt like nothing was possible.
When all I could do was sit & collect Dust.
'All I could do was sit & collect Dust. Artist's hair, dust & detritus, 5x5x5cm 2020
