Paper Trail

2010 – Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, N Ireland

The individual works that comprise this collection – The Raft of the Medusa, a sharp, literary and politically inspired reworking of Gericault’s nineteenth century history painting; the figurative Cultural Containers afloat in the Four Seas/ Archipelago; the subtle, cryptic ‘self-portrait’ in Flying Book; the romantic Inishowen Tree and the poetic allegory of Pan who ‘descended through a colourless void’ – are all examples of contemporary screen-printing at its highest level.  The numerous veils of colours employed, particularly of the Black, Red, White and Yellow Seas, are quite sumptuous, almost seducing the viewer into thinking these images are layers of painted pigment but, combining digital photography with latter-day developments in screen-printing technology, these richly hued, multi-layered images are fine-art prints printed onto papers as various as roughly textured cardboard and archival quality parchment.  Each print is one of a strictly limited edition, with usually no more than 5 in each edition to ensure quality and aesthetic value.