Nest

About this artwork

In this encaustic work,, the layered wax, pigment, and scraped textures evoke the resonance of my Irish ancestry and a profound sense of both loss and resilience. At eight, I left a small village in Ireland for the vast urban landscape of London—a dislocation that continues to shape my identity. The landscape depicted are not just places but emotional terrains, expressing both a longing for what was left behind and the strength that comes from enduring that transition. The piece is a conversation with that past—a past that is both distant and present. ‘Nest' is dark introspective piece—a tangle of greens, skeletal, as if the land itself is mourning and, at the same time, stubbornly persisting. The process of layering and scraping back reflects the tension between concealment and revelation, a physical excavation of self. This technique mirrors the complexities of ancestral connections, where time and memory are layered and obscured yet ever-present. Each stroke, each carved line, becomes a tactile act of reclaiming, embracing the landscape as a self-portrait without physical likeness. My 93% Irish DNA is more than a statistic; it is a living thread that ties me to this place of moss and stone, water and wind. The distinct, haunting greens of Ireland serve as a language through which I convey both loss and a renewed connection to the land—a connection that persists, despite distance and time. The encaustic medium, with its demands for patience and surrender, mirrors this search: the act of layering, uncovering, and revealing not just what lies beneath but what endures. This work is my self-portrait—a dialogue between surface and depth, between the seen and unseen, between the artist and the ancestral land that remains ever-present beneath the waxen layers, both a source of longing and a wellspring of strength.