These illustrations were created in 2023. I was intrigued by the folk names for the monthly full moons and how the seasons and biodiversity may have influenced the names. This collection is rooted in place and a journey through the seasons. Find it in my shop here: 2024 calendar inspired by moon names
Between projects I am slowly adding to this group of drawings. I am interested in themes around deep ecology, embodiment, interconnectivity and animism. The drawings are on Arches acid free hot pressed paper with watercolour and pencil. The photo in this group was taken in 2006 and exhibited in the Carlow Arts Festival in 2007. It remains an anchor point for my work.
The first drawing in this group is called “Council of All Beings/For Whom the Bell Tolls”
In 1985 Joanna Macy, an environmental activist, eco philosopher, systems thinker and Buddhist, created a workshop titled ‘Council of All Beings’. Participants make masks of beings from the ‘more than human’ world. While wearing these masks they take on the essence of that particular being. They bring their mask and the essence to the council and tell of their experience living on a planet where their safety or existence is constantly threatened. At the centre of the council sits a person, who does not wear a mask, representing humanity. They must bear witness, listen and remain compassionate. The workshop is a way for participants to grieve for the Earth and its inhabitants. The idea is that collective grief can be healing.
In this drawing a person sits at the centre of ‘the Council’. They are surrounded by people wearing animal heads. The animals chosen are either extinct in Ireland or are on the critically endangered list. The person at the centre of the Council should be listening and bearing witness. Instead, they are engrossed on their mobile phone. They are not listening and not aware, and in some way not present. Climate change is not any one individual’s fault. Yet, if we keep collectively looking away and not bearing witness, what happens to us as individuals? Collectively looking away or in this case, the faded person at the centre of the council, can be imagined as Western capitalist culture: big oil, pharmaceutical and industrial agriculture. These groups are collectively choosing not to bear witness or change. Not to pay attention to the shifting base lines. Humans are at the centre of the ecological web and by continued extinction of other species, we too are endangered. On an individual level the idea of the person in grey and faded speaks to our concentration levels because of mobile phones and social media. In many ways the human race is fading.
We don’t perceive ourselves as connected to each other or the web of life. But perhaps we are more connected than we imagine. The mass extinction of species currently happening is a bell tolling for humanity, should we choose to pay attention.
Perhaps it’s harder to pay attention now when so much is at stake. What happens to us when we deny our interdependence within the ecological web?
“No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were;
any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.”
MEDITATION XVII
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
John Donne
1624
This work started in 2018 at a time when I was particularly interested in the architectural forms of trees in winter. I gave myself a brief to create Christmas cards that could be hung as a piece of art, that the whole product would be 100% eco friendly and that the box set of greeting cards would connect people with the beauty of nature, trees and stars in wintertime. At the time friends had mentioned to me that they felt more depressed in winter. I noticed my own mood change when I spent time in winter and gazing at the patterns of tangles of branches, which we can see more clearly once the leaves fall off. Winter is actually an incredible time of transformation in nature.
Sleeping trees surround us in winter, giants standing still as perfect architectural sculptures, reaching their heavy arms up to the stars. There is something about the solitude of trees in winter as they brace themselves through the harsh weather. They make a simple yet profound transformation every year, a perfect example of the cycle of life both of physically and spiritually. Seen through the lens of a tree we can begin to view our own life in this way as we each navigate our own personal tough winters, periods of growth, times of renewal, work and finally the joy of a perfect summer’s day. Trees make magical transformations, buds appearing from what seemed like death. There is deep trust in the way trees move through the seasons.
I began to work on trees again in 2020 and now trees are an integral part of my work. Many of the trees I draw are trees that I know or pass by on walks.
Reflecting now on this work I don’t think I can draw one single tree because they are so much more than the trunk and branches. A tree is also its roots, the landscape it lives in and all the seen and unseen beings that live in it and under it. A tree is a habitat, a food supply, an oxygen maker, a life force and so much more. It’s difficult to put all of this into a drawing but if I do draw trees again, I hope my work reflects this.
Conor Miley is a singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Ireland. In 2022 he approached me about making illustration/drawing work for his new album, Thousand Yard Stare, which would launch in 2023. I created a small drawing per song based on the lyrics. A cover and some other work for his promotional and media campaign.
You can find Conor’s music on all streaming platforms. Vinyl will be released at the end of October. A booklet of the illustrations and lyrics can be purchased separately from Conor.
Find out more about Conor here: Conor's Linktree
In Autumn 2021 I worked with the company Pocket Forests. I illustrated the native trees they plant. The trees I drew were drawn from saplings they had planted at either the Mercy School in Inchicore, Dublin or the large planters at Digital Hub in Dublin 8. The saplings include hawthorn, guidler rose, elder, downey birch, rowan, hazel, spindle, dog rose, crab apple and wild cherry.
Pocket Forests used the illustrations for a booklet they give to communities who plant their trees so they can identify the saplings.
Please see the wonderful Pocket Forests website for more information on the biodiversity and community work they do:
A Pocket Forest is a “method of planting native trees, shrubs and wildflowers in small urban areas adapted from the work of Japanese botanist Akira Miyawake who created Tiny Forests. We recreate layers of a forest: a canopy layer of tall trees, a shrub layer and ground cover. …
Miyawake-style forests speed up this natural evolution by densely planting lots of species of young trees, shrubs and wildflowers grown from wild seed. “
These illustrations were created between 2022 (the square shape illustrations) and 2019 ( portrait style). They eventually became Winter greeting cards. Some are available as prints.
I wanted to draw the attention of the viewer to the beauty, silence and magic in nature during winter. But also to it’s fragility, especially in this time we find ourselves in. Each illustration was accompanied by a text which made it’s way on to the back of the greeting card. The text was, in some way, as important as the illustration and the words came before the images.
Themes included low impact fishing communities, Wren Boys which is an ancient Irish tradition that connect rural communities, the connectivity within a woodland, migratory birds and reverence for nature.
In early 2022 I found wood in a skip behind my house. It’s very close to a river which runs through the area I live in. The pieces of wood had probably been paneling in someone’s apartment. Which is more than likely beside my house and the river. I decided to take of the lengths, chop them up, sand them and give them a new life. Or create new stories for them. What messages was the wood itself trying to tell me. Where had the wood grown originally? What memories were embedded within the fibers of the wood?
Because I work as an illustrator I am really interested in stories and visual narrative as a means of expression or altering the way we see something. What was once discarded wood could become mini paintings.
I wanted to incorporate water and birds into the wood scapes. I found the wood behind my house and beside the river. A heron lives there and I see it many times a day. There are many other birds that frequent this area such as crows, seagulls, ducks, migratory geese, wrens, blackbirds, blue tits and a sparrow hawk. Sometimes I can see swans or migratory geese flying over head. I am curious as to where the wood came from originally and if birds sat in its branches. Did migratory birds that over winter here fly from the branches of the trees that made this wood?
I wanted this series to feel romantic, drawing on old style paintings by painters such has Turner.
This is an ongoing body of work. I am interested in the connection humans have with nature and specifically birds and foxes. These drawings are inspired by my personal interest in meditation and shamanism - the cyclical process of nature, and the impermanent universe we inhabit and the idea that everything is constantly changing. Clouds, like thoughts, pass over but are not static. The woman wears a crow head receiving wisdom but can take it off so as to connect to her own inner wisdom. The fox acts as a protector, staying nearby, watching, observing, and perhaps offering advice.
These drawings are musings and meditations.
The first image “Thinking of Gaza” is a live fundraiser for Medecins Sans Frontieres to support medical aid in Gaza. Of course, as I write this, not much aid is getting into Gaza. This is live until November 3rd Fundraiser
The second image “LHR/DUB Return Journey” was dawn in 2017 in reaction to the upcoming referendum that was to be held on the 25th of May 2018. It was originally intended to share on social media as a way to get people to think about the debate and how travelling abroad might affect the woman involved. People began to contact me asking for prints. In April 2018 I sold an edition of prints and donated €500 to Together for Yes, an organisation committed to repealing the 8th amendment. It was drawn with pencil and acrylic paint.
The second image “Refugee Border Crossing 2022” was drawn in response to watching the events in Ukraine. Seeing women fleeing their country and home with a few belongs, children and pets left an impression on the world and on me. I sold prints and donated €1,180.00 to Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders.
Please contact me if you are interested in doing a fundraiser. I am particularly interested in working with women’s rights, refugees globally and eco/climate committed NGOs.
A selection of private commissions.
I work with commercial and private clients.
I begin by chatting to the client to get an idea of what they want, what style, size etc. Then I sit down to sketch and email a series of sketches. Once we have signed off on an idea I get to work on the original piece.
Please see the link to Instagram where you can watch a private commission in process here
If you would like to commission me please be aware that an original artwork can take a few days to a few week to create, depending on size, agreement on sketches etc.
Commercial clients include Pocket Forests, Crow Street Collective, Conor Miley Music and the Newman Family.
This is a snapshot of work created between 2006 and 2010. Most of the work around that time was in pencil. I was interested creating groups of drawings that could form installations.