Kathryn Maguire

3D modeled and printed snake. Cast in black Jesmonite. Multiples available and more colours to come.

The root of my practice has been intrigued by alchemical changes in

metals, minerals and spirituality. Materials and matter have an ancient importance as Prima Materia, using metal and stone supports these alchemical changes as the materials are always changing and breathing, this is important to my understanding of deeptime. The changes that happen with each season are akin to the alchemical changes and cycles of the Earth.

Exhibited in

2024 Hivernal curated by Eammon Maxwell in Roscommon Arts Centre

2021 Naturisms 399 Hornsey Road, N19 4DX

For sale - email for enquiries

Underground Potential

Jesmonite sculptures with copper and lead and coal elements.

l52cm x w40cm x h36cm housed in a free standing brass and copper rod metal plinth. 54cm x 42cm, steel 55cm x 42cm

After researching the colonial history of mining in Ireland and travelling to many disused mines, I discovered the Allihies Copper mine in West Cork was extracted in 1810 by the slavery of women and children. Then the rocks were exported to Wales to be smelted in Swansea. The Lord who discovered the copper saw a malachite stain in the cliff rocks calling it the opportunity for Underground Potential and issued the extensive mining adit in 1813.

This led to the inspiration and fabrication of Underground Potential – Copper and Underground Potential – Lead and soon coal.

Mineral Mountains.

2024

Cast pigmented jesmonite with gold, shungite and iron oxide on wooden plinths.

The Mountains are inspired by geodata forms of Iron Mountain, with additional minerals and imbued with healing pure pigments.

Colony.

2024

Cast pigmented jesmonite pyramids.

The pyramids are 26 selected Mountains in Leitrim, the colours representing the geology of the Mountain sites.

ENGLISH GAEILGE CO ORDINATES GEOLOGY

MOUNTAINS IN LEITRIM

Agow Top Loch an Ghudhbha. 54.373287, -8.208472 Limestone

Arroo Mountain Sliabh Áradh 54.4072, -8.26183 Karst

Ballaghbehy Top Bealach  na beithe ( way of the birches)  54.264736, -8.085153 Limestone

Bencroy Gob na bhFiach (beak of the Raven) 54.120108, -7.931927 Coal

Crockauns Na Cnocáin (the small hills) 54.317145, -8.370095 Siliceous limestone

Benbo Beanna Bó 54.2668, -8.29323 Paragneiss, copper pyrites

Conwal North An Chonbháil Thuaidh 54.399, -8.20063 Quartz feldspar

Crocknagapple Cnoc na gCapall 54.7217, -8.35102 Galena

Dough Mountain Sliabh Dúch, Sliabh Dubhach 54.2993, -8.07014 Sandstone

Hangmans Hill Cnoc an Chnocaire (Hill of the hillman) 54.306519, -8.337177 Limestone

Keeloges Na Caológa 54.4029, -8.30088 Limestone

Keelogyboy Mountain Na Caológa Buí 54.2966, -8.35806 Siliceous limestone

Knockacullion Cnoc an Chuilinn 54.0985, -7.92283 Coal

Lackagh Mountain Leacach 54.2375, -8.12622 Sandstone

Larkfield  - Ceathrú Mhic Oireacht (Mac Oireacht's Quarter) 54.264643, -8.172628 Karst

Leean Mountain Laíán 54.2971, -8.29995 Karst

Lugganammer Log an Umair 53.929, -7.71084 Shale

Naweeloge Top - Loch na bhfaológ (lake of the Seagulls) 54.252188, -8.005349 Limestone

Ox Mountains Sliabh Gamh 54.0801, -8.97796 Serpentinite

Seltannasaggart Sailtean an tSagairt nó Sliabh an Choire 54.1355, -8.15008 Sandstone

Sheemore An tSí Mhór 53.9916, -8.01968 Coal

Slieve Anierin Sliabh an Iarainn 54.0841, -7.98472 Iron

The Playbank Sliabh na Coilleadh 54.179411, -7.951739 Sandstone

Thur Mountain An Tor Mór 54.2993, -8.07014 Sandstone

Tievebaun An Taobh Bán 54.397199, -8.357390 Shale

Truskmore SE cairn Trosc Mór 54.371968, -8.365279 Limestone

I performed a Vitruvian woman shape on the floor of the metal workshop. The circle was a map of my body. I had this dream that One Inch to the mile would sit on top of a mountain as a beacon. I had been reading Nan Shepherd and Aldo Leopold and was interested in how we commune with landscapes; perhaps there are other ways to climb or ‘go into’ or think like the Mountain. This research led me to discover a historical moment when Ireland was the first Country in the World to be mapped completely by the British using the ‘One inch to the Mile’ scale. The mapping was by way of using Trig Points or Triangulation Points and theodolites on top of them shining beams of light at midnight; it was the beginnings of Ordinance Survey Maps, that began in 1824. The trig point or triangulation point represented this potential to think about landscapes in a different way. I wanted to make a trig point in scale. I wanted to make a structure that was a beacon or homage to the top of Mountains.

Image One Inch to the Mile

The interior trig-point is inspired by those found on mountains, a clear glass resin pyramid akin to the pyramidion capping pyramids. When the viewer touched the steel, the conductive zone, a voice emitted from the sculpture. The trig-point reminds us how mountains were mapped and colonized for ‘underground potential’ suggesting a new approach to perception-frontiers through Nature and Mountain walking.

The work is a large steel circle measuring 190cm h circle, with a fabricated Triangulation Point (to scale) 54cm base x 25cm top, and a fabricated pyramid made in clear resin, 25cm square. The resin pyramid has a light feature.

To the Mountain.

2024

Limestone from Trotter’s Quarry, Leitrim carved by Seamus Dunbar.

The symbol is of a trig point found on mountains and sites of elevation on a map.

Mapping Mountains

2024

3D printed Mountains informed by real geo data, surveyor tripods, and geological specimens.

The Mountains; Benbo, Slieve League and Iron Mountain. Iron nodule from Iron Mountain, Slieve League’s Quartzite and Benbo’s Gneiss with pyrites and garnets. The tripods used in the field were painted gold for tuning and communing with the earth’s magnetism. the geological specimens are original rocks from the printed Mountain.

Azimuth.

2024

Gunters Chains on Fired Clay wall. The draped chain has been used in land surveyance, measuring 66 foot with 100 links, these chains were used to measure large areas of land and Mountains for the baseline reading.

Mount Ida

2024.

Iron cast Greek shoes, magnet. Inspired by the fable of Magnes the

shepherd; reputedly the first to notice magnetism, when the iron nails in his shoes and staff- tip stuck to the Iron Mountain of Magnesia. The iron shoes act as a memory towards this fable and the embodied inner compass.

Plateau

2024

A triangle of copper mirror with text reading plateau, 40cm base.

The viewer is invited to look through the theodolite and to view themselves upside down in the mirror.

Theodolite

19 th Century Theodolite.

Thank you to Surveyor Malcolm Gerry for generously loaning this item.

Rock - Tree Resin, Bronze, eco resin, wax.

Rock series is a extensive examination of materials. An ancient piece of Quartz sourced from Ubley Waren, from the the ‘rake’ of a old Lead Mine, and was then moulded in silicon rubber.

This mould of a rock then became the form to test and cast multiple materials. This is a cast in organic tree resin. Other materials cast are bronze, eco resin, wax and other types of tree resins.
The tree resin sourced online was melted and poured into the mould. Maguire will source local pine resins in the future.

It is Maguire’s plan to create a library of materials, she will find in the various locations in Norfolk in the form of these rocks on her Ground Work residency in August.

The silicon mould of this form will manifest as a Materials Library of new Materials. The most exciting one is the Tree Resin.

This Tree Rock shall be on display in Ground Work Gallery in Norfolk. https://www.groundworkgallery.com/ part of my future residency in August 2022.
In Collaboration with:
Curator Veronica Sekules
Medium: Variable
Size: 10cm w x 7cm h

Silt Microns 1 & 2

2024

Printed banners on cotton: 140 w x 300 h cm

Electron Micrographs of soil samples of London Clay, showing metal pollution.

The images show the spherules of iron oxide silicates pushing out of the clay. The clay was gathered from the site of River Thames Tideway project where the Super Sewer was appointed. Geologist Dr Tim Newman sourced me London Clay samples and other geological strata from the River Thames. I then went to Innes Clatworthy, Electron Microscopist in the Imaging and Analysis Core Research Laboratories in The Natural History Museum in London and used an electron microscope to create the Electron Micrographs shown.

The Mourning Band

Black Brick intervention

2023

Using black brick embedded into the buff-coloured brick on the pillar, the work represents a ‘mourning band’ around the pillar. The black brick was embedded in black mortar and supplied by the same company as the buff-coloured brick used in the rest of the pillar.
Its initial appearance will be of abstracted black sections of brick, forming a pattern on a single pillar, allowing the impact and meaning of the work to develop over time and across a number of registers.
The work consists of a wide band of black brick around a pillar at the front-facing side of the building. The band will be centred from head height for an ‘average’ woman. This band acts like a mourning band, such as those worn by people when grieving a death (for example by officials at a funeral).
Accompanying the work is a plaque with a short text, composed in collaboration with Justice for
Magdalenes. (see below). This plaque sits at the specified location with an ancient Cypress tree in the background. This is cast into a pillar, the design of which matches the brickwork on the building, the pillar, is planted with black and purple plants, to signify mourning.

In memory of all the girls and women who were confined in the former Magdalene Laundry on this site (1831-1991), and to the children born to some of those women. In 1993, 155 Magdalene women were exhumed from this location to facilitate the sale of the land. 154 women were cremated and their ashes were interred at Glasnevin Cemetery.

Respects can be paid to them at their grave located at LN140-MN146 The artwork adjacent to this plaque, a brick intervention by artist Kathryn Maguire titled ‘The Mourning Band’, acts as a mark of honour to all the women who lived, laboured, and died on this site.

Silt and other Matters

This residency will explore the rich history and possible futures of riverine and estuarine matter. Six materials have been selected and this project will consider the biography of these materials, their physical characteristics, and the sites and spaces where they can be recovered. This practice-based research provides a new way of uncovering the literary and material history of the river. By introducing hidden voices from the archive Dr Jemima Matthews and artist Kathryn Maguire will introduce a new set of narratives about riverine materials. Through this unique collaboration Dr Jemima Matthews and Kathryn Maguire will explore the early modern, modern, and future history of these materials on and off the page. By tracing the six materials through time and space this residency will engage with landscapes lost and regained by the river; histories of flooding, drought and riverscape management; local and global narratives of crisis and sustainable practice.

Project team

Dr Jemima Matthews is a Lecturer in Early Modern Literature and culture at King's College London. She is currently preparing her monograph Habitat and Habitation: The River Thames 1550 to 1650 for publication. Challenging the divide between riverine texts and contexts in new ways, this study unsettles the distinction between written and physical geographies.

Kathryn Maguire is making diverse cultural references linking the past with the contemporary; exploring geology, history of materials including building materials and the circular economy. Current themes in her practice are lithics, minerals and mining and knowing place from the ground up.

Teach na Mban

House of the Women is an imagined home for all women. The brick former was created while I was researching The Mourning Band, a memorial for a former Magdalene Laundry in Dublin, Ireland. I wanted to think about building materials and living breathing houses. The bricks that were sourced for that housing project were naturally handmade. This gives the building more structural integrity. The work is also a gesture of using natural handmade materials in our building environments. Passive houses are good for the environment and the inhabitants.

The word Mná means woman in the Irish language. The brick was a gesture to smash down the walls of oppression and patriarchy and pave a new future for all women.
Gently inspired by the 1968 ‘Under the Pavement the Beach’.

Kathryn Maguire is making diverse cultural references linking the past with the contemporary; exploring geology, the history of materials, building materials, and the circular economy. Her practice concentrates on lithics, minerals, mining, and knowing place from the mantle up.

Her residency in Pasajist in Istanbul started with the ritual of touchstones in the fabric of the city. The research was informed and expanded generously by Dr. Mehmet Serkan Yatağan in the Faculty of Architecture- Building Materials Department, Gönenç Göçmengil Professor at the History of Science Department, at Istanbul University, Turkey, and Prof. Dr. Fatma Gülmez Yıldırım in the Faculty of Mines at Istanbul Techincal University. Maguire has explored rocks and minerals and fossils in the Istanbul area. She has attempted to make new rocks on her residency, and to understand the experience of complexities of deep time visible in Istanbul's building materials.

Liquid Landscapes Series 2022

These floor-based landscapes will embody the viewer, offering possibility and futurity. Their height offers a ‘coming down to Earth’ scale, a hovering-over-the-Earth sense. The silica landscapes are teleological, informing their viewer of a sense of floating, adapting, flowing with tides of change. Inspired by disappearing snow on Icelandic mountains, they are also a homage to Smithson’s Mirror works.

Liquid Landscapes

How it was created. The MTR structure was taken to 3D modelling, and was scanned. It was then taken to CNC and made into its next iteration, It was spliced using Rhino and the reading was used for both the mirror and the MDF stacks. This contour shape has become a repeat pattern, and through repetition, a motif throughout my work, being interpretated in many materials.

27 cm height 42 cm length 29 cm width
In Collaboration with:
Photographer
Thomas Jenkins documented the show Earthly Bodies silver series curated by Clare Stent.

Gold series photographer Gabriel Mansfield at RCA degree 2022.

"A collaboration between @rcasculpture, @thepoorhousereadingrooms, dorset - @vangoghhouse, london
@thepoorhousereadingrooms is a living archive of modern and contemporary artists books and affordable editions housed in a former church poor house in a rural setting near the jurassic coast in Dorset. It hosts residencies, research visits and publishing projects. @vangoghhouse was the home of Vincent Van Gogh for two years when he was in London working for his uncle's fine art print business. It is also an active exhibition space commissioning new works that draw and reflect on the site, its history and contemporary art making.

The project will consist of a one week workshop in February including guided visits to several London based 'living' house museum/galleries and series of seminars and making workshops .The project includes an opportunity for participants to produce original artworks for a printed artists book and series of posters. These will be housed in the collection at the reading rooms and also have a group and public launch event and weekend exhibition at Van Gogh House the weekend of 28-29th May 2022 where students will be invited to host and invite a speaker to write a short introduction to the book. The reading rooms will be open for visits by individual students in Summer 2022.
Paul Nash's guide to Dorset is extraordinary. It was published by the great oil giant ""shell oil"" as one of a series if guidebooks for motorists on British counties. What is particular about this edition is that they commissioned a poet and artist to write it. Nash produced a guide which he filled with stirring images, poetic speculations on deep time and sets out the vision of landscape as a surrealist object.
Though Nash is known for his investment in sprituality, and phenomenology we will also refer to the book to explore Nash's prescient post human vision for surrealism and ideas of the ontological real informed by science.

The commission will use the book as a provocation and motif- artist's will explore the cityscape and rural landscape as a surrealist object - of wild stone- replete with the forces of physics, geology, and deep time as well as human cultural action. It also opens up the paradox that a book that is so sensitive to the geological was commissioned by an oil multinational with its legacy and present of geological and ecological extraction."

Strata was inspired by and modeled on the biggest and deepest mine/ quarry that is the Mir Mine in Russia.

To create the work took many processes and many, and various, great technicians in the RCA advised me throughout the process. First, a 12-layerdeep MDF structure was formed called Strata, this was then lacquered, and then in Future Materials, a silicon rubber mould was taken from this structure.

The two Jesmonite Underground Potential works in the physical degree show were taken from this mould, using pigments and natural lead effect and copper

I decided I would also stack all the MDF I had taken out from this original structure to create another Mountainous-type structure called MTR. This stands for Mountain Top Removal; measuring 27 cm height, 42 cm length, 29 cm width.

Big thanks to Future Materials and all the Wood Technicians magicians.

MTR

means Mountain Top Removal which is a abhorrent way of mining in some locations, to literally remove a Mountain top to access the minerals and metals on the sub surface.


To create the work took many processes and many, and various, great technicians in the RCA advised me throughout the process. First, a 12-layerdeep MDF structure called Strata, was created and then lacquered and then in Future Materials, a silicon rubber mould was taken from this structure.


The two Jesmonite Underground Potential works exhibited at Battersea studio 11, works were taken from this mould, using pigments and natural lead effect and copper

Liquid Landscapes

Liquid Landscapes Series 2022

These floor-based landscapes will embody the viewer, offering possibility and futurity. Their height offers a ‘coming down to Earth’ scale, a hovering-over-the-Earth sense. The silica landscapes are teleological, informing their viewer of a sense of floating, adapting, flowing with tides of change and Timefullness. Inspired by disappearing snow on Icelandic mountains, they are also a homage to Smithson’s Mirror works.
35cm h x 42cm l x 30cm w

I want to reclaim the word Corona

This is a Crown for the Underworld. Inspired by a trip to Volcano Monte Corona in Lanzarote. The stunning green is similar to the local volcanic glass called Olivine.

Big thank you to Pete Musson in Jewellery and Liam Reeves in Glass in RCA.
Medium: Green blown Glasswork, copper dendrites
Size: 17cm x 15cm

Inspired by the fable of Magnes the shepherd; reputedly the first to notice magnetism when the iron in his shoes and staff stuck to the Iron Mountain of Magnesia.

The bronze shoes act as a memory towards this fable and the inner compass.

We are lithic bodies performing rocks.



The above quote is from a new text-based work and meditation in places of over-mining and extraction. How can we repair wounded landscapes? I have been performing some acts of reparative rituals in wounded landscapes or disused mines across the UK, Ireland, Lanzarote, and Iceland. I am using acupuncture needles and copper earthing fabric, this is slowly evolving as a poetic film.

How can we reinterpret these punctured landscapes?

N99 breathing mask electroformed in copper. Serpentine stone from The Lizard, Cornwall carved by Katharina Dettar.

2021

Electroformed copper N99 Mask and carved serpentine
15cm x 10cm

N99 breathing mask electroformed in recycled copper. A breathing valve is carved in Serpentine stone from The Lizard, Cornwall carved by jeweller Katharina Dettar.
The mask was inspired by the high levels of iron particles and particulate matter that were on the rise due to cars and machinery releasing particles into the air called brake dust, the making of the mask coincided with the COVID 19 epidemic. The serpentine stone represented how geologic rocks are being used to capture high levels of carbon in farming, by laying crushed rock onto landscapes. The mask was for a sick planet, copper is known for its curative and healing powers.
The work responds to the crisis of air pollution and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

The copper is always breathing and shall tarnish naturally over time.

Shown in Safehouse 1, London 2021

For sale - email for enquires.

Negative Entropy
or
The Third Law of Thermodynamics
or
How It is We Keep Alive

We feed on crystals, feast on minerals,
Batten, upon the moon, consume the stars
And through the channels of our love drain off
The sun’s heat and the whole world’s energy.

The crocus and the oak, the elephant,
The long-tailed tit, the taxidermist’s owl,
Our eyes, our hair, our nails, all, all the same
Millions of indistinguishable atoms
Chaos in single numbers, order in milliards.

Only the passionate indestructible pattern
Of the all-but-eternal molecule, carries the key.
Locked in its heart lies the secret
To grow from the acorn the oak,
From the corm the year’s yellow crocus,
From the fertilised cell the elephant,
From the egg the tit or the owl,
From eyes our children’s eyes, from hair their hair
And from our nails their same peculiar nails.

Each greedy of life resists death,
Sucks sustenance from the desert;
Devours the rock and the ruby.
Until we cool to our end
And dying provide new fires
For love and fresh generation.
from The Lightning Struck Tower, by Sheila Shannon
London: Frederick Muller Ltd., 1947

Aired in 2023 https://ikonotv.art/ at https://ikonotv.art/Channels/181/artspeaksout-climate

Brake Dust

Plaster Casts measuring 16cm w x 41cm l & 20cm w x 36cm l

Brake Dust explores the idea of what Air Pollution might look like if it were imagined as a sculptural object. This is the first in a series of works using crystallography to imagine the unimaginable and indecipherable. The individual casts are scaled-up models of the crystal magnetite, which is an iron ore.
Brake Dust is made up of many nano particles that are released into the air every time someone brakes their car. Traffic pollution particles can contain many thousands of materials, including carbon, hydrocarbons and bacterial toxins. But because of the materials that modern brakes are made of, the dust that wears from them is highly metallic – including many types of metal, such as iron, copper, titanium and magnesium that studies have shown cause stress and harm to human cells.
I wanted to visualize what these nano particles would look like if I scaled them up. I am inspired by Plato here in an attempt to make visible the invisible.

The Possibility of an Impossibility.

Solid Silver cast Plane seeds taken from Gezi Park in 2013 in Istanbul in the midst of the Gezi Riots and protests. Black vinyl disc 17cm circumference

The Balloon curated by Jessamyn Fiore, Rawson Projects, 223 Franklin

Street, Brooklyn, New York 11222. 2014

The work ‘The Possibility of an Impossibility’ includes seeds from Gezi Park, Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey. The seeds are from Plane (Platanus) Trees that were once threatened and some cut down, they were witness to the events in June 2013 whereby the Occupy Gezi Movement was shut down by riot police and all were repeatedly covered in tear gas and water cannons. They are now immortalized in solid sterling silver. The seeds represent a ecologicsocial event. Once they were witness to an event whereby people convened and discussed potential and change, now they become but a gesture to their Uprising. They symbolize change and desire and a real common need for togetherness in this change. The work is a commentary about the threatened trees in Gezi Park, Istanbul, Turkey. The beginning of the Occupy Gezi was originally about a peaceful protest to try to save the threatened trees in the park, which then escalated into chaos. The innocent lives of people were under violent attack of an unprecedented amount of Riot Police and tear gas and water cannons; freedom of speech itself was under threat. The trees stood for so much more than a violent act towards Nature; the Turkish authorities are still using force to silence anyone who speaks out against the State. This oppression and disregard for Nature combined create a new form of environmentalism and activism, as Nature itself is now a capital and is easily replaced.

Artist Takeover: Kathryn Maguire


In these moments and days I, like many artists, have been working from home, being locked out of my lovely studio in Rathfarnham Education Together where I have been doing an artist residency since 2019.
In between the panic, baking bread, and yoga, I am spending time trying some new things, especially making my own paint, and am attempting painting (or mark making) – creating works I call ‘Energy Drawings’. The act of making paint is a slow process: the Gum Arabic takes two days to make. Once ready, the grinding and mixing of the pigment is a slow and rhythmic process as the pestle rotates slowly within the mortar.
The other thing I am trying to perfect is my skill of soldering. All of my studio explorations at present are inspired by my residency with The Magnetism Group, Trinity College Dublin.
-Kathryn Maguire

Watch:

Alain de Botton - The Art of Travel
With travel negated in this time of quarantine I found rewatching this episode of Alain de Botton’s highly entertaining. It also poses the interesting question of what are we looking for when we travel.
Watch here :



Tom Sachs’ Studio Practice -
Ten Bullets
As I am home and trying not to make a mess, Tom Sachs’ video of the Ten Bullets rules is a great (yet tongue-in-cheek) reminder of good studio practice. A.B.K - Always Be Knolling Always.
Watch here



Read:






Junichiro Tanizaki - In Praise of Shadows
What if we thought a little better about the materials we use everyday, and how we exert a force on those materials? What if we start to take into account who labours, prepares and mines these taken-for-granted materials? Is it time we started to talk about ethics in production and how to slow down our consumption?
Read here



Rudolf Steiner
I visited the exhibition Cosmic Dust in Visual Carlow, in 2015 and came across the incredible Blackboard Drawings of Rudolf Steiner. The opportunity to stand in front of these works was thrilling and now strongly resonates with my current observations in my Energy Drawings.
I was Artist-in-Residence in Rathfarnham Educate Together until Covid-19. Whilst there I had been researching Magnetism and ways of visualising scientific knowledge.
Joseph Beuys and Rudolf Steiner started to drift back into my consciousness; fundamental questions of making started to resurface: What is education? What is Art?
Read here

Listen:



Uncivilisation
This little red book has been an unusual treasure and a great introduction to the wonderful Dark Mountain Project.
Read the chapter IV TO THE FOOTHILLS! ‘A movement needs a beginning. An expedition needs a base camp. A project needs a headquarter' and the ‘Eight Principles of Uncivilisation’ and then enjoy losing yourself in their website. Their website and beautiful books are a great group of stories, with thematic artworks and texts fitting for these uncomfortable times.
Listen here



Fast Forward Podcasts
This particular episode explores the idea of polar shift and magnetic fields. My research at present is taking me to far-reaching areas in researching Magnetism and Air pollution (its causes, and what it looks like). This particular podcast has stretched my mind and is informing my practice and object-making. Listening to the physicists NOT being worried about polar shifts is also comforting.
Listen here

Music:
Rozi Plain - Symmetrical
Alone in a room
At home
A dream a dream
A realistic dream
Yes you can stand it just can't understand it
Strange about the change….
Listen here

Family Listening


I have visited Iceland three times now and every time it inspires me. One of my favourite writers and thinkers is Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason. Over the Covid 19 quarantine days he has offered an entire reading of his award-winning book The Story of the Blue Planet for free online. It is recommended that if possible it should be listened to by the entire family together.
Watch and Listen here

Make:

Nettle and Porridge Bread
Nettle and Porridge Bread (or my City of Bohane Bread inspired by Kevin Barry’s incredible book). I just add a handful of nettle leaves and pumpkin seeds to this recipe (link below).
Read here

Highlight from the Hugh Lane Collection:

'Chinese Landscape’ by Patrick Scott.
'I treasure this painting so much. I have used it many times in VTS tours and workshops, and every time it yields an endless interpretation. Sometimes it has an Asian feel to the landscape as the title suggests but it also has an otherworldly ancient Irish quality.
It was once described as a group of young people coming home from a rave at dawn. It also suggests a slowing down, and closer meditations on it offer a solace to the uncomfortable days we inhabit.
Read more about it here

Kathryn is a member of the Hugh Lane Gallery Artist panel since 2015. Recent artist-residencies include Fish Factory in Iceland, Rathfarnham Educate Together National School and with The Magnetism Group, Trinity College, Dublin. She is exploring a discourse between science and art, in subjects ranging from Air Pollution to Magnetism and keeping busy in her housebound makeshift studio.

Cycladians

Clay ( various sizes)

Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland.

2018

The Cycladic series are small sculptural responses to Cycladic sculptures in Athens, Greece and British Museum. They were exhibited in The Butler Gallery. They measure 20cm x12 cm at the largest like the Cycladic faces/masks and the smaller are 15cm x 10cm all fabricated in white and black clay. 2018

A Pile of Dust.

“What is an artefact?”

For me an artefact is something that was made by humans that was somehow important to that person or helped them to live better. Whether this object has function or is decorative is irrelevant. There was a sense of urgency to create the object and the making is imbued with meaning whether personal or cultural. 


“What sociological, political, cultural, historical factors turn an object into an artefact?”

Something that withstands time, is a mystery, an object that represents a culture or people that no longer exists. Objects that are charged with the essence of the time they were made in. Time is distilled within the object. 


“What artefacts may represent contemporary imperial constructs of culture?”

Things or objects that have been removed from their original settings or place and used for other purposes. The colossal Elgin marbles of the Parthenon, Acropolis, Greece stand as a warning or as an omen in the British Museum, every time I stand before them, a shiver runs through me as I am aware how they were obtained as debt booty in a time of occupation of Greece by the Ottoman Empire. Either they are retuned or the true story of their provenance should be on display. They were procured in the 1800’s and an excuse from the British Museum is that 'the Parthenon sculptures were “a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries” and were a part of “the story of cultural achievement throughout the world” which the institution’s exhibits tell.’ In a time of Brexit and Britain exiting Europe these colossal works if returned, may be an example to the World for all artefacts to be returned to their origin.

“What artefacts may represent absences in cultural representation?”

The Cycladic sculptures and figurines made throughout Greece by the mysterious Minoan Civilisation made in the Bronze and Neolithic Ages represented the dead, the FAF or folded arms figurine was a votive or effigy to the dead, every household would have one made to honour the deceased. They had a function beyond the realm of decoration. There were large amounts made but only few now survive in private and public collections worldwide. The face and body has inspired some of the most influential aesthetic artworks in the world such as Amedeo Modigliani, Head of a Woman, 1910/11 and Brâncuși’s graceful marble bust Sleeping Muse I from 1909–10. The vogue for Cycladic art that arose with the avant-garde’s appreciation spurred an illegal traffic of artefacts that has only complicated the study of Cycladic culture. As a result of such looting, “many of the Cycladic art objects now in Western museums have no provenance or any description,” Getz-Preziosi explains. The historical significance of Cycladic art has been additionally convoluted by the proliferation of for­geries produced during the 1960s.

I visited the incredible Akrotiri in Greece and saw the remains of an entire civilisation obliterated to a pile of dust from the local active Volcano which was incredibly humbling and fascinating. Trying to piece the puzzle of the life that lived there. To see the remnants of their homes preserved in Volcanic ash and see the incredibly advanced life of the mysterious Minoan and Cycladic civilisation. Unfolding the story I visited the local Museum with some of the artefacts that were once used in the Akrotiri times and dwellings. These same folded figures and long nosed faces would later stare at me from a Vitrine in the British Museum later that year on a research trip, this time the vitrine was haphazardly situated on the route to the lavatories. I remember the guide in Greece told me the folded arms was always a way to honour the dead. It’s a common visual at many Greek funerals, I pondered how insincere to house this votive to the dead in a glass display on a toilet route. 


“Can an artefact be digital?”

I have different views on this but in the wake of a War and an obliteration of a culture if an object survives as a digital representation I think this has the power to become a artefact. 


“Can an artefact be contemporary?”

In 2017 rapid-response collecting was created to urgently collect new works that had a deep impact and representation of time. The Pussyhat Project aimed to turn the march into a 'sea of pink', creating a striking visual statement of solidarity for women's rights in protest against the incoming Trump administration. An estimated 4 million people took part in sister marches in over 600 cities around the world on the same day. On 13 February 2017 one of these Pussyhats entered the V&A's collection as part of Rapid Response Collecting activities. Rapid Response provides a way for the V&A to engage in a timely way with important events that shape, or are shaped by design, architecture and technology.

We Claim

Public Banner measuring 400 x 600 cm

Artist in the Community Award 2016 from Arts Council.

Abbey Theatre Building, Eden Quay, Dublin 1 November 2016- March 2017

We Claim is an artistic collaboration between a Young Migrant 

Women's Group based in Dublin & Kathryn Maguire. 

Kathryn Maguire's practice uses text, sculpture, video, and installation work. 

She has used text and materials of signage as a means

to highlight historical writings in public spaces, 

making diverse cultural references that link the historical with contemporary.

The Young Migrants Women's Group are comprised of Valerie Molay (Public Speaker and Activist), Catherine Kayya Murphy (Model, activist ), Annie Waithira Murugi, (Model, activist) Cyndi Njoki,(Poet and writer) and Grace Wilentz, (poet and writer and editor), Jennifer Hon (artist) and Kheira Belfedhal (Writer). We Claim aims to count and consider migrant womens’ voices, in the marking of the centenary and takes inspiration from the Proclamation as a piece of text, and its interpretation today. Also, we researched how women of the past worked together to form creative groups, leading us to a concept of an artwork banner on a public building and chapbook inspired by the past with contemporary issues 

to celebrate the strengths of the young migrant women.

Our research led us to Helena Molony and Alice Milligan: both women created theatrical plays and writings and Feminist papers both in Ireland and Northern Ireland, publications which were exclusively for women, and known as the first Women's newspapers.

The artistic banner was inspired by Alice Milligan who was born (1866-1953). She was an activist, poet, actor and writer. As a Nationalist and activist she created Tableau Vivants and sited them throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland.  She used wigs and found household goods as objects that could be used for dressing up in Warrior like poses.

'Simplicity of make will be found to be quite compatible with artistic beauty, and stage magnificence can be attained without extravagance.' 

The image was inspired by Queen Maeve and her daughter as mythical warriors and was taken on the Abbey Theatre stage with photographer Ros Kavanagh, symbolic of all Irish women today. The poem was written by Grace Wilentz part of We Claim and was inspired by W.B. Yeats and Maud Gonne. The performers Catherine Kayya Murphy and Annie Waithira Murugi, are also part of the We Claim group. The artistic banner was on display on 15-17 Eden Quay in the City of Dublin similar to the magic lantern projections made by Milligan.

Gilead

Image printed on perspex - with 3 layers of perspex. 21 x 15 cm

Nasty Women

Pallas Projects. August 2017

A barren landscape captured from the Wicklow Mountains with a red gel over the skyline area. The title was named after the dystopian novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood.

Terra Incognita (overview)

Platform Arts Belfast, 1 Queen Street, Belfast. 4th March - 23rd April 2016

Terra Incognita 

Catherine Barrgary | Emma Houlihan | Kathryn Maguire

Curated by Deirdre Morrissey

Terra Incognita is a Latin term used by early cartographers referring to uncoloninised or unconquered land, or what was often referred to as virgin territory. The word incognita; here is the female of the term ‘incognito’ where ones identity is concealed or hidden. The feminization of hidden, unknown or unconquered land even the feminization of the word ‘virginal’ reminds us of the male perspective on the language used to refer to possession and territory. Land was considered virgin territory if untouched but land could also be raped and plundered through conquest, as could the female body. Ownership of land historically was considered a male right of possession, so perhaps the land itself was considered female in order to be the counterpoint of the male farmer. The term Terra Incognita is used when referring more specifically to land as property. The concept of land as personal property is said to have come about with the advent of the agricultural revolution and with agriculture came a need to control personal territory. Inequality amongst the sexes is said to have its

roots in the social organisation of the farming societies when women also began to be considered part of a man’s property and their status declined. So if land is not owned, named or farmed it becomes Terra Incognita – it is left unchartered, a blank space on an old map. In many ways the same could be said historically of women; if they were not married (owned and named) or farmed (childless) then they did not hold status in the community. Like the untouched woman these blanks on colonial maps held a sort of mystery, a place yet to be explored or controlled. The desire for control of territory through colonization meant that these unexplored places eventually diminished and so Terra Incognita can also serve as a reminder of the tenuousness of possession of land. The three female artists chosen for this exhibition Terra Incognita have all responded individually to these ideas. Their artwork broadly references the land, geography, its physical material make up and also wider philosophical notions about inhabiting unchartered spaces and exploration. Each artist possesses an intuitive response to materials in their individual art practices and sensitivity around notions of territory and possession.

‘Us’ Again

Mirrored garden shed

End of 468 Residency - Floating Public artwork installation ‘Us’ Again and The Exchange on Grand Canal at Suir Road Dublin 12 to Grand Canal Basin,

Dublin 2. 2013

‘Us’ Again reflects who we are, public space and the potential of possible futures, disrupting the everday flow of movement. A 6’x 4’ ft shed is clad in vinyl acrylic mirror. Nature and us are symbiotic and yet fragmented, there is a rupture in place as it passes or as the viewer passes it. This work was floated down the Grand Canal from Suir Road to Grand Canal Basin part of Festa 2013 a celebration of my 468 residency award.

https://www.commonground.ie/artist_profile/kathryn-maguire/

https://vimeo.com/72358198

Platonic Mirrors

Platonic Mirrors measuring 60 cm diameter pink vinyl laser cut acrylic mirror.

The mirrors have ancient Greek text laser cut out of the mirror. They are inspired by the writings of Plato in his essay Ion in 533D

They were exhibited in Butler Gallery in 2018 for my solo exploration whatcanweseewhenweseetogther part of Culture Night. The ancient Greek words translate into English as nous to mind or understanding.

Desire is

Vinyl acrylic mirror ( 124.5cm h x 246cm w)

Thisisnotashop in No Soul For Sale 2 at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall part of Tate's 10th anniversary 14th - 16th May 2010.

Dublin Contemporary 2011 at Earlsfort Terrace venue
6th September- 31st October 2011

Purchased by OPW

In the work ‘Desire is’ has the text ‘Desire is the very essence of man’ laser cut in to the mirror. The quote is from Baruch Spinoza a dutch philosopher from his essay ‘Ethics’. The artwork uses the language of advertising in the medium but with a message to consider the desires we encounter on an everyday level. Due to it being flexed in a convex way, the viewer can see an elongated view of their body. The mirror used in this work is more commonly used in advertising and shop displays.

The desire Spinoza means is an emotion, similar to pleasure and pain. His idea of desire is an appetite, a wish to survive and live.

Nobody can desire to be happy, to do well and to live well 
without at the same time desiring to be, to do, and to live;
 that is, actually to exist.’ (Spinoza)

By using mirrors as a metaphor for desire, the perspex mirror creates an illusion of the body. We are confused with our body image and the image we see in shop mirrors. We are made to identify with ourselves first and then the product.

Walk the Royal Canal and let science be your guide on Feb 3rd 2017
How has the equation i² = j² = k² = ijk = −1 influenced the world.

Time explained...
Both myself and a group studying Community Care in Marino College embarked on a great discovery of the secrets of Dunsink Observatory and Time, also where Ireland had its own Mean Time and was 25 minutes before London, this was also commonly known as Dunsink Time. William Rowan Hamilton the Observatory's Chief Astronomer and Director discovered a equation which is now only being realised 169 years after him. We will look at these findings in a graffiti work on the Croke Park site.

Event
Walk back in time on Feb 3rd at 1.30pm 2017 meeting at Croke Park on the Royal Canal and meet characters from Ulysses who are out of time but for a good reason. Dunsink time is mentioned five times in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses.

Thanks to the group studying Community Care in Marino College who created the graffiti work, Swenys Pharmacy of 1 Lincoln Place, Dublin 2 and Actor Vinnie Mc Cabe, and Maurice O Reilly, Head of the Mathematics Department at St. Patrick's College for their kind participation in this project and , to Mathematicians Fiacre O' Cairbre, N.U.I. and Hilary O' Donnell in Dunsink Observatory a member of the School of Cosmic Physics; the Astrophysics and Astronomy Section (D.I.A.S) and Alan Gallagher Croke Park for their kind support.

Please wear suitable warm weatherproof clothes and comfortable shoes. We will be outside and finally paying a ferryman a visit indoors. Bring a umbrella as it is Ireland.

The Cardboard School is a participatory art and education project put together by collaborative artists Kathryn Maguire and Aine Ivers. They created a cardboard structure influenced by the ancient Greek agora. Space for assembly and the exercise of democracy is at the heart of this participatory project. It serves both as a structured area of debate for young visitors and a private space of reflection for the passer-by. This installation fuses an environment that encourages participation with a desire to make contemporary art accessible to all.

The ‘school’ that happens in the cardboard agora comprises of 12 young participants, aged between 16 and 18, from three Dublin youth services, and a youth worker from each service. The youth services who are participating are Finglas Youth Services, Mellowes Road, Finglas West, Dublin 11, Coolock Youth Services, Sphere17, Coolock, Dublin 17 and Swan Youth Services, St. Agatha’s Hall, Fairview, Dublin 9.
The participants are meeting once a week for six weeks in The Cardboard School. They are coming together to see the extensive array of artworks in Dublin Contemporary 2011, to reflect together on their opinions of the works, and to make cardboard furniture and a zine about Dublin Contemporary.

May 2013 on the Grand Canal – IWAI Dublin Rally, FESTA 2013 and Dublin Docklands Summer Festival

The Inland Waterways Association of Ireland’s 29th Dublin Rally took place over the month of May, beginning on the Royal Canal over the May bank holiday weekend.

The Grand Canal then becomes involved from the 10th of May when boats will be inbound towards Grand Canal Dock from the 10th to 12th. The Liffey Cruise takes place over the weekend of 18/19th May and boats will depart along the Grand Canal from 21st to 25th May.

For a full programme of events please follow this link http://dublin.iwai.ie/events.html#Rally2013

The Rally will incorporate FESTA 2013 and the Dublin Docklands Festival

FESTA 2013 10th to 12th May 2013

Visual artist Kathryn Maguire, the current studio 468 artist developed FESTA over the last eight months. FESTA is an “artistic nuisance” created by visual artist Kathryn Maguire to celebrate the impact and influence the Grand Canal has had on labour and leisure in Rialto and other areas through which it flows. Kathryn has produced floating artworks ‘US’ Again (a floating mirrored shed) and The Exchange (a floating vegetable garden created by the men’s Gardening Group based in St Andrew’s Community Centre using the iconic Dolphin’s Barn bricks).

FESTA is a central part of Inland Waterway’s Dublin Rally on the Grand Canal on May 11th and 12th 2013. FESTA also includes a series of events including public talks – the Festa Dialogues – on a barge docked at Suir Bridge on Saturday May 11 from 2pm, featuring experts in the field of ecology, the built environment and the Grand Canal. Free ticketed boat rides and a nature trail will also take place. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

FESTA culminated on Sunday May 12 at 4pm with a spectacle in Grand Canal Dock, when hundreds of origami boats, made by young people from the Canal Communities, will be launched around the floating artworks. Children (aged 10+) are invited to a free workshop at 2.30pm at the Waterways Ireland Visitor Centre in Grand Canal Dock to make the final origami boats to be included in this spectacular launch, all accompanied by jazz musician Nick Roth’s ‘Water Project’.

https://vimeo.com/79377846

http://www.commonground.ie

Video in Terra Incognita

The Free Seas

‘The Free Seas’ is a colloborative project with fellow artist Aine Ivers which seeks to explore Ireland as an Island and the idea of ‘islandness’. The Free Seas sought to explore the Royal Canal as a outlet to a new economy, Inland Waterways assisted us with our research and the local Swan Youth Centre were participants in our exploration of the Canal and its hidden stories, a local Historian Terry Fagan informed them of his youthful plans of escape and they created toy rafts, myself and the Aine Ivers (artist) created a large scale sculptural Raft which was floated on the Canal for the Five Lamps Festival in April 2011, engaging the Canal with the local community encorporating storytelling and sculpture. We also had a working barge where the mini rafts were exhibited and boat rides on another boat supplied by Inland Waterways. The whole event was a huge success for everyone involved.

The sound created resonates as if in a cave due to the acoustic characteristics of the copper vessel, while the alarm clock - an object from the everyday – is frozen and framed in a ritual where time passes yet stays still.

http://www.attractionoftheopposites.nl/artbychance.html