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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Welcome

We formally welcome you to ‘FLUX’, the Limerick School of Art & Design Graduate Show of 2018 featuring the work of final year LSAD Graduates from Painting, Photography Film Video, Print Contemporary Practice, Sculpture & Combined Media, Ceramic Design, Fashion Design, Fashion Knit & Textiles and Graphic Design Communication.

The journey of a graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design is a deep experience of the self and ideas. An immersive collective engagement where individuality and creativity are celebrated. The strength of Art School is that all students in their multiplicity and experiences can join this collective journey of exploration across the various fine art and design disciplines. The graduate show is a wonderful moment for presentation of this journey and celebration.

The importance of having this safe space of discovery is as important to the recent school leaver as to the mature student who has found the means and the moment to return to study and pursue a dream that has been harboured for many years.

For LSAD students, Limerick city and its growing cultural confidence becomes part of this engagement. This year we welcome the beginning of a new creative industry here in Limerick, with the opening of Troy Studios, the largest film studios in Ireland. We hear of the many LSAD graduates who have been immersed in the first ongoing production ‘Nightflyers’ and the vast array of creative skills and inputs that are required and the possibilities that are opening up in the region. Many of our graduates will seek new challenges elsewhere, however we also hope that many stay or return to this region so that their enterprise and creativity will further impact and enrich our environment.