Field Study I
Materials:
Ceramic on board
One of my first steps into ceramics, this work renders Ireland's famed fields abstract...
When learning to make tiles in the ceramics studio, I was inspired to create a collage of irregular tiles that fit together like puzzle pieces to form fields. Central to my MA practice is capturing snapshots of an Ireland left behind by the migrant, and a recurring motif I keep coming back to is the green fields. For me, the fields of Ireland are symbolic of the country's relationship with the land throughout its history, from land as autonomous co-habitant to land as possession. By giving the tiles hard lines and perfect shapes, I remove the ancient curves of the divided land to emphasise how the division of land into fields is a human action rather than natural state; a practice brought to Ireland upon colonisation in order to commodify her.
