ABOUT

What is the greatest moment in your art career, that if it all wrapped up today would give you solace?

There actually isn’t a greatest moment. I consider all moments of the journey equal. The highs and the lows only fill me with great humility, and remind me that I am only a small part in direct connection to a greater whole.

Collage is a lot about sourcing materials you came upon, how do you search/collect for the materials used in these works?

I’ve been going out on long walks taking photos of Cork that I use in my collages. During these walks I also find billboard ads, cinema posters, and all sorts of discarded materials that I bring back to the studio. If I never took photographs and never went on these walks, these collages probably wouldn’t exist.

A few years ago, international collectors in the US, Germany, and France started sending me materials from their own neighborhoods. I now receive these packages regularly, and I do my best to honor those pieces of their worlds in my work.

From your background in film at what point did you transfer to collage? What is it from the medium of film you still use today?

From early on I was fascinated by the different ways of assembling film to create layered narratives, as well as the potential power residing in the combination of image and sound. I still work off and on as a film and video editor, which has taught me a great deal on pacing, rhythm, breathing, storytelling and being invisible.

I naturally transferred from film to photography, and from photography to collage because the ideas that I needed to translate required working with different mediums. After realizing that working in one ends up benefitting future work in the other, I then placed my work at the intersection of all three.

I carry almost everything I learned from film editing into the making of my collages, although the process may seem different, I’m still taking disparate parts and assembling them together, giving them new context and meaning that should transcend matter, leading the viewer back to something raw and essential.

Reformation, renaissance... Does Cork have the power to detach from its elder cities as a young zeitgeist and reinterpret art to create something completely uninterrupted?

This question feels heavy on buzzwords. Music aside, the visual arts have long been dominated by a duopoly: painting and sculpture. This is a fact that doesn’t need reinterpretation, but just like everything else, it should be questioned and challenged.

As far as creating something completely uninterrupted, it’d only depend on people who clearly could never fit the current mold to push the needle in a completely different way.

As Poetonic, an almost alter ego to the man, what is the main plan for your art career and directive in the next 5-10 years?

My plan for the following years is to stay on a path where I can continue to cultivate my imagination and develop more self-awareness, all while preserving and directing my attention towards work that becomes increasingly meaningful.

Leaving the material world to material people, my only wish is for my work to remain a sacrament.