Siobhán McDonald

A root looking for the sun (2023)

Roots, peat and quartz

“When looking at, listening to and even smelling the artworks by artist Siobhán McDonald in her current exhibition — The Boglands Are Breathing — one is transported to different landscapes past and present.”
Irish Times review by Sylvia Thompson: irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2023/05/25/a-meditation-on-memory-and-time-siobhan-mcdonald-captures-landscapes-at-tipping-points/

Siobhán McDonald’s solo exhibition, The Boglands are Breathing, presents a new body of work that critically explores the role of boglands as both repositories of our past and guardians of our future. https://www.themodel.ie/?exhibition=siobhan-mcdonald-the-boglands-are-breathing

Boglands are mythical places where the most important changes of contemporary times are taking place. The artist, Joseph Beuys described them as “the liveliest elements in the European landscape, not just [for] flora, birds and animals, but as storing places of life, mystery and chemical change, preservers of ancient history.” The Boglands are Breathing responds directly to this thinking to encourage awareness of the cultural, historical, biological and climatic significance of bogs.

Filtered time (2023)

Glasshouse, suspended paintings on animal gut skin, ancient letters from the Faddan More Psalter.

In the end Gallery, a glass house stands alone entitled Filtered Time, inspired by the mystery of the fragmented Faddan More Psalter in which animal gut skin is sutured together with paintings of bog plants in a delicate shroud suspended in a state of transformation lingering between life and death. The glass house that was reclaimed is illuminated by light and sound coming and going in the rhythms of human and plant breath. Siobhán worked with the Dr John Gillis, (chief manuscript conservator at Trinity College Dublin,) for many years in one of the purest conversations she has ever had in the creation of this artwork.

In a multifaceted body of work, Siobhán McDonald blends scientific and creative processes to make sculpture, video, works on paper, paintings and sound pieces. Our shared boglands are positioned as the protagonists of an unseen drama, and this work makes visible the collective memory that is held in the rich repository that exists within the thin layer between the soil and the rocks. The exhibition gathers numerous collaborators, bringing together scientists, conservators, musicians, philosophers, perfumers and celestial phenomena, all of whom collectively take part in the evolution of the work.

Searching for a remedy (2023)

Book: animal skin, hand sewn. Blackened out plants depict extinction of species in one of the historical herbal collections belonging to Trinity College Herbarium.  7 minutes film, projected onto skin, LED projector. Overall dimensions variable

The week the sun touched the earth for EMMA (2023)

Oil painting, Projected film and easel. Collaboration with ESA and NASA for the launch of Solar Orbiter into space.

The week the sun touched the earth for EMMA aims to capture the act of looking at solar storms whose magnetic fields have a direct impact on our bogs. The film employs multiple drawings and images of solar storm eruptions that frame distant images of a dancer walking across the sun. The projection aims to capture the phenomenological act of looking and seeing solar storms which occur on the North and South Poles as a double virtual reflection. The movement is portrayed by my dear friend, the late Emma O’Kane. Her exquisite movements explore the sun through dance and point to places beyond our imagination. She literally embodies the movement of light behind the horizon. The film uses special NASA solar lenses adapted for the project to explore realms and perceptions of reality and conjure up a deep past.

Time isn’t deep (2023)

Ancient water from the deepest part of the Greenland ocean, hand blown glass air vessel

Time isn’t deep (2023)

Ancient water from the deepest part of the Greenland ocean, hand blown glass air vessel. Ancient water, preserved for eons, delicately enclosed within a hand-blown glass air vessel, leaving the depths of the ocean untouched.

A Library of Lost Smells (2023)

Is a slow distillation of deep time created from plants and mineral rich bog waters, that explores links between smell & memory. The installation holds an assortment of hand blown glass bottles containing scent from eight of the most important notes. Some of the vessels contain scent infused remnants that were buried deep in a bog for over 20 years alluding to the low oxygen levels and unusual smells derived from the preservation conditions. The artwork employs the senses to cultivate an intimate, intuitive experience that aims to transport participants through time as a reminder of the medicinal properties in the pharmacy beneath our feet.

Methane Lake (2022)

The artist paints on large blocks of ice from different moments in history that have calved from the Arctic ice sheet and brought to the British Antarctic Survey. The act of painting with invisible methane gas presents itself as time capsule of the frequency of the Earth 20,000 years ago, representing the imagined notion of a time we cannot go back to.

Another body of work responds to the global context of bogs at the poles. As our worlds ice disappears – out boglands are exposed. Theses massive landscapes hold many toxic gasses – like methane. And also many clues to the past in seeds and matter buried deep in the past. Methane Lake brings together themes spanning locations from the Arctic tundra to Irish bogland in an installation that explores the slow workings of geological processes found deep in permafrost, meditating on the sentience of ice. Siobhán began this aspect of the work by spending two years at international cultural institutions including the Palais de Bozar, Brussels and the EU Commission in Ispra to research the power of ‘bogs’ to transform our air. While in tandem, back home she explored numerous bogs such Bragan mountain to consider ideas around time and the preservation of collective memory in that thin layer between peat and plants.

STUDY FOR A VOLCANO (2020) Study for a volcano’ (2020) Eyjafjallajökull 2010 eruption film through glass prism, 2:20 mins a glass prism embellished with volcanic ash, air particles and 24 karat gold.

The installation is composed of a of glass prism embellished from the repeated application of thin, transparent layers of pigment made from volcanic ash to form an optical quality surface. The prism appears static, but when you look closely the film projections make the reflections on the surfaces distinct. The work focuses on air and how we, as humans, can affect our surroundings. Filmmaker, Christopher Ash

Commissioned by The Model with funding from an Arts Council Project Award. Supported by NatPro: Trinity College Dublin and Creative Ireland.

Part of the exhibition in Gallery C is primarily an artistic response to the project ‘Unlocking Nature’s Pharmacy from Bogland Species (UNPBS)’ led by Professor Helen Sheridan, Academic Director of NatPro, Trinity Centre for Natural Products Research.