“The doctor points to your pelvis. You model the tumors—in this light they look pretty, like jewels.” – Portrait of the Illness as a Nightmare, Leila Chatti

Lauren McCullough is a fine artist based in Limerick and Louth. Her work is focused on an attraction to the body. She traces its capability and limitations, the ways it carries and conveys emotion, its internal and external workings. She is especially drawn to capturing the unpredictability of chronic illness and the relationship between the ill body and its behaviours, peripherals, environment, and the spaces it’s contained to. In her practice, she aims to resolve her shifting emotions with illness and the body through creation.

She is primarily a textile artist working with crochet, sewing, and embroidery. However, poetry and a multimedia approach are also essential parts of her process. These mediums take time and focus, allowing for a mindfulness of the body and consideration of colour, delicacy, and attention to detail. Through this she attempts to find comfort where there is discomfort.