Print Contemporary Practice

Eithne McGill

Swim or Sink Below

The work revolves around the art of repetition with regard to the management of wellbeing. The use of repetitive writing came from the Eastern meditative practice derived from Zen Buddhism, shodō (calligraphy). The writing method was used as a means of venting emotions, exploring how one can move on from the feelings associated with those specific words. The words used were taken from the last line in one of my haikus and was adopted into a mantra.

The haiku describes the everyday mental struggle of getting out of bed in the morning. A water metaphor was employed, the experience of wellbeing viewed as ‘treading water’. Some days your head would be bobbing above the surface, other days you can barely keep it afloat, and sometimes it feels like you are drowning –a cycle that keeps repeating itself throughout life.

While making the work, things that surrounded and affected me got absorbed into the work, making themselves known through the gestures and mark-making; the recordings of my emotions. Charcoal was chosen as the writing implement for its elemental quality. It is soft and fine, easily transferable from one surface to the next as a smudge. Just as the littlest of things can rub off and impact me, the charcoal can do the same to others, but in a physical way.

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