Our Artists

Deborah is a visual artist living in Dublin. Primarily a sculptor, her practice spans a wide range of media including video, sound, photography and performance. Her main objective is to create opportunities and sculptural interventions that explore the artistic process as an agent for change. Her intention is to develop a practice that encourages discursive, participatory and collaborative processes that reshape our perception and experience of the world.

She has researched the links between art and architecture and ideas around psychogeography, studying the effects of the geographical environment on the emotions and behaviour of individuals. Her current body of work, based in and around the river Liffey in Dublin, explores the effects of alienation associated with everyday living. Her degree show piece Untitled (2014) involved making a coracle (a one-person portable boat) and walking with it on her back through the city. It concluded with a live performance under Spencer Dock bridge and a sound and video piece exploring the action of the coracle travelling down the river Liffey in Dublin. She studied at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin where she was awarded a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 2014. Check out her blog by clicking here!

Untitled (2014) video still. 

This piece explores the action of the coracle

 travelling down the river Liffey in Dublin

Why is she partcipating: This project offers me an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of ecological issues and the marine environment. It will expand my practice in a different direction while maintaining my overall objective. I look forward to taking part in a collaboration that has the potential to create more attractive and meaningful connections to ecological issues by combining artistic and scientific skills.

Fiona graduated from Crawford College of Art in Cork in 2001 having studied fine art painting. She spent the following decade working and exhibiting in Ireland and abroad. She returned to education in 2011 and completed a degree in Textile Design at the National College of Art in Dublin. It was here she developed an interest in traditional Irish Lacemaking. Fiona began to realise the importance of these very precious and highly specialised techniques and also became quite concerned at the rarity of present day lacemakers. 

Having worked as a painter for many years, she began to consider how she could translate visual interpretations of her environment through Lace. The linear structure of the Lacemaking process lent itself perfectly for this, allowing her to document her observations in minute pattern detail. More importantly, the freedom within this technique allowed Fiona to move beyond technical concerns and explore her personal creative vision. Fiona’s work is informed by topographical, geographical and historical observations with particular focus on boundary lines and networks. These boundaries are instrumental in how the landscape is shaped and by acknowledging these time lines, her intention is to form historical connections and raise questions regarding identity and place.

Through her work she aims to breathe new life into a dying art form by of re-inventing and re-presenting Irish Lace, capable of communicating ideas in a visual and contemporary manner. As a result the idea of preservation underpins her practice. This notion is examined by engaging with the tactile process of lacemaking and pushing the boundaries of that process.

Why is she participating: As an artist communicating ideas is first and foremost in my practice. Through the Paper Makers, new methods will be developed as a means of communicating these concepts. This excites me greatly. Collaboration between scientists and artists present so many engaging possibilities which will open a platform for inspired thinking, discussion and creativity. Sustainability and the environment are two issues which have become central in my work, therefore the prospect of responding to a paper which discusses the marine environment is hugely appealing.

Ian is an Irish artist living and working in Dublin, Ireland. Ian graduated in 2012 from the National College of Art and Design with a 1st Class Honours Degree in The History of Art and Fine Art and was awarded the Model Niland Residency Award at the 2012 RDS Student Art Awards. Ianʼs work has been produced internationally and exhibited across Ireland, in Europe, the UK and America. Focusing on the manner in which painting has been used historically to construct our cultural perception of the term “landscape”, Ian uses paint in combination with processes of external intervention and installation to challenge the manner in which we interpret the idea of “landscape”- not as a single, framed concept but as a conglomerate of ideologies and pre-conceptions which are inherently cultural. It is through the imposition of an alternated viewpoint on an accepted reality that Ian hopes to circumvent expectation, offering a new potentiality where our experience and perception of the everyday and the consequences of our relationship to it can be re-invigorated.

Why is he participating: Science and art have always been closely related. Both disciplines represent distinct attempts to underpin and examine the complex nature of humankind's relationship to the external environment. I see this as a unique opportunity to broaden the debate about the relationship between art and science, around a subject which is of increasing relevance to the everyday functions and concerns of the individual. By creating this dialogue in collaboration with someone engaged in the field of science, I hope to bring to the public, work which is not only enriching and informative but which places the individual at the centre of the debate; where an understanding the significance and consequence of our relationship to the external environment is brought to the fore.

Jethro is an independent artist who has lived and worked in cities across Europe and the Middle East and is now based in Bristol, UK. He graduated with a BA (hons, with distinction) in Environmental art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2006, and is currently pursuing post-graduate studies in Human Geography at the University of Bristol. He works across media and fields of professional practice, collaborating through socially-engaged and academic partnerships to facilitate and expand public discourse around changeable landscapes. His work uses found materials and borrowed languages to elicit layered histories of place through drawing, sculpture, installation and performance. Workshops and participatory projects further augment this practice, developing collaborative approaches for an unsettled future and a contested past.

His FutureMuseum project is an evolving pop-up collection appearing at galleries and festivals across the South-West (Bristol Harbour Festival, Bath Fringe, Create Centre). Recent exhibitions include Unruly Waters at the Parlour Showrooms, Bristol, The Power of the Sea at the Royal West of England Academy, Speculative Ground at the University of Edinburgh and Waste of Space at the Trinity, Bristol. He is now working with Seila Fernandez Arconada on Some:when, a socially-engaged project for the Somerset Moors and Levels, supported by a grant from the Somerset Community Foundation. Current academic affiliations include the Soil, Seeds and Social Change study group (U. Bristol), the Postphenomenological Methodologies group (UWE) and Between the Tides, an exchange between U. Glos and U. Gröningen.

Orphan or The One That Got Away (2014, mixed media, L. (of manatee) 14.9 cm) 

Jethro Brice :  www.jethrobrice.com

Why he is participating: For me art is more than a means of communicating - it is another way of exploring and generating knowledge and meaning. I think art and science have always needed each other, but now perhaps more than ever. Collaborating with others is an opportunity to share what moves and inspires us about this world as well as bringing together our expertise to create new responses to its problems and challenges. I am excited about working across disciplines and generating conversation and exchange - because it is important and because I relish the opportunities, at a personal level, to share and learn.

L.J. McIntyre is a writer whose work has been performed, published and exhibited. Previous platforms include Discover 21, Festival of Erotic Arts, Merchant City Festival and macrobert’s Post-It Festival as well as anthologies, magazines, online and ‘on the buses’.  

Other current projects include: working on her first poetry collection Confessions of a Pawn Shop and Other Poems and a collection of dark children’s stories. The first story entitled The Monster in the Kitchen broaches alcoholism, depression and divorce. L.J. McIntyre lives in a room and kitchen in Glasgow with an impressive menagerie of guinea pigs, fish, frogs and a snail. One day, a dog shall follow.

This poem appeared in
Mslexia Magazine, 2005

Why she is participating: Paper Makers appeals to my love of literature, the environment and the arts. It also provides an ideal opportunity to investigate methods of sharing written word pieces more interactively to engage wider - and new - audiences. This aim has been a major aspect of my artist practice in recent years. During Paper Makers, I shall explore possibilities of displaying written word pieces through eco-friendly means such as reverse graffiti.

Click here to check out Lauras website!

Ros is an artist using found material and objects in practice and the choice of material is prompted by its ability to clearly locate the subject matter of the work. More recently she has been working with spatial drawings and mapping to re-present information and describe territory in a visual language.

Ros creates digital drawings and borrowed found digital information and then used this on another scale as a template or outline for physical pieces of work.  The look of a physical piece is characterized to some extent by the information being communicated and also by the desire to attract the audience and engage them in the work. The resulting work may be either a physical object or an original piece of digital information to be circulated using existing media.

Why is she participating: Sustainability and its wider consideration in contemporary society is a subject that interests me with particular emphasis on the marine environment. Paper Makers is a wonderful opportunity to work with scientists who have specialist knowledge of marine ecology and to use a recently published article as a point of departure. 

I am looking forward to discussing the paper and gaining a deeper understanding of the facts. Working from the outset with scientists who can explain methodology and ways of presenting information that is familiar to their community will be a great a benefit. The project will define a starting point from which to present a piece of artwork based on the current position of particular marine issue. The artwork can be the stepping off point for further pieces of a larger scale that build on the information and insights gained participating in this project.  Additionally it will provide a good opportunity to build relationships and networks with scientists and organization.

Charli is an interdisciplinary artist currently based between Bristol, UK and Espoo, Finland, where she is completing an MA in Environmental Art at Aalto University of Art, Design and Architecture. Since graduating from her BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree, University College Falmouth, UK in 2010, she has been focused on increasing understanding and reverence for the natural world through a variety of different processes.  

She was awarded artist in residence at The Muse Gallery, London and Green and Away, Environmental Conference Centre, Worcester in 2011 and has participated in a number of exhibitions, events and commissions across the UK, Finland and Sweden over the past few years. Recent projects include ‘Take One Down’, a dialogical community based performance, for AMORPH!14 Community, 2014, MUU Gallery, Helsinki, ‘SWARM’ for BZZZ International Sound Art Festival 2014; a project about the life and death of honey bees, Harp Art Lab, Sweden, ‘godsbridgex’, a project inviting 10 artists to respond to the landscape around the River Greta, with specific attention to God’s Bridge, a natural limestone rock formation, 2013-2014, commissioned by ArtWorks Teesdale, Bowes Museum, Bowes and 50%, a performance installation where man meets banana for ‘BLOP: Bristol Live Open Platform’ 2012. 

Why she is participating: Through is project Paper Makers I saw the opportunity to work in direct collaboration with a scientist, to delve deeper into the complexities of the chosen research and learn new approaches or ways of working within both scientific and artistic contexts as an invaluable experience.

Check out Charlis website here and her blog by clicking here.

Modern Natural History, 2014

Collaboration with Gabe Wong to document the death of a Great tit that died flying into a glass window.

Every year millions of birds die because of glass building architecture. This bird is one example. Since arriving in Finland Charli has become a member of the Finnish Society of BioArt and spent time working in Biofilia, a science laboratory built for artists, however, her work there is with fellow artists and she is yet to collaborate with a scientist. Charli’s work is very much based on or inspired by scientific fact and observations of her environment.