SCULPTURAL INSTALLATIONS | FILMIC ARTWORK | PHOTOGRAPHY
Loan Bush is a series of outdoor installations, filmic work, sculpture and photography which conceptually explores the rite and ritual surrounding Ireland’s Hawthorn tree. ‘The Lone Bush’ refers to single hawthorn trees standing alone in a field (having grown of their own accord) and regarded with fear and superstition in Ireland. The tree, associated with otherwordly beings known to abduct humans and potentially destroy crops, animals, health and fortune if wronged, is avoided wherever possible and associated with ritual to appease and protect. This work series explores ideas of relationship to place and how culturally constructed folklore affects contemporary social memory manifest in tree veneration, amid fear and respect; oftenso ritualised through private or collective symbolic gestures of pilgrimage and pattern.
A solo exhibition at Sirius Arts Centre, Cork included a large living hawthorn tree in the gallery with steel and oak sculptures as part of the installation.
Project supported by: