“Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography,
none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography”.
Edward Said
Landscape has no other reality than our idea of it and what is visible on the surface is simply the outward sign of greater forces struggling beneath. My work explores the process of land formation and is influenced by experience and strata of memory.
The charge for my work comes from the force of Nature and the energy I draw from that. The tug of war between conflicting forces in nature, pushing and pulling in opposing directions is reflected in paintings which grapple with the tension between abstraction and representation.
The earth’s shifts and movements mean that landscape is constantly evolving. Building up the paintings layer by layer resembles the way land itself is formed. A process of attrition takes place, building up and wearing away, refining down to get to the essence. The paintings are not geographically specific. What emerges from the work process is the product of an inner perspective, a point of view which tries to be true to the spirit of the place. It is as if the image is there in the paint and needs to be released, to be dug out.
Mairead O’Neill Laher
May 2010