Artwork by Lorraine Whelan . . .
Signal Arts Centre Residency 2019
For ten weeks, Oct-Dec, I was again resident in the upstairs, private studio, where I had already decided that I would focus on bookbinding and printmaking. However, I did a daily self-portrait in my sketchbook each morning as a work warm-up and also participated in "Inktober", creating a daily sketch to follow a prompt. I created a number of leather sketch/notebooks using a variation of the medieval tacket-binding technique (which was the first bookbinding technique that I learned). I also created a number of "handbag" books, bowdlerising my mother's and my own old handbags, and a number of other small blank books using the Japanese stab-binding technique. Following on from the previous year's drawings from my time spent in the south of France, I started work on a number of lino prints that I intended to bind as an editioned portfolio. For further information on this project, A Short Walk to Fort Carré, please see my printmaking and Artist Books sections.
Image Details
- self-portrait: As I had done in my 2018 residency, I decided that a great daily warm-up was to draw a self-portait in a dedicated A5 sketchbook. There was a full length mirror at which I sat in front, and I had a variety of media to use on the table next to me. Each day was different, depending on my mood!
- inktober drawing: At my child's recommendation and challenge, I participated in Inktober 2019. For the month of October I followed a daily prompt and created a daily ink drawing, which I posted to Instagram.
- books: I made a number of sketch/notebooks with soft leather covers using the mediaeval tacket binding method, and a number of other books (handbag, leather-covered, sponge-covered & vinyl-covered) using the Japanese stab-binding method. In addition, I prepared 3 paper portfolios for binding the linoprint series "A Short Walk to Fort Carré", with the intention of binding the prints into the portfolios using the Japanese stab-binding method, by February 2020.
- printing: I borrowed a small press and installed it in the studio. I turned a number of the drawings I did at the end of my residency in 2018 into lino prints. I cut a heavy card "window" so that the press could print the relief plates, with no problem. Before I did the prints for "A Short Walk to Fort Carré", I did test prints of wood and lino blocks I made in the past.
Artist Statement / Bio
I was born in Toronto, Canada into a large Irish immigrant family. Shortly after obtaining my primary degree in 1986, I moved to Ireland to where my parents and half my siblings had already returned.
My writing (poetry, art criticism & commentary, fiction, non-fiction) has been published in Ireland, Canada, USA, Luxembourg & online.
I have exhibited my artwork throughout Ireland in both solo and group exhibitions and have exhibited in group exhibitions in France, China and Canada. I have participated in artist residencies and symposia and my work is included in private (US, Canada, Australia, UK & Belgium) and in public/corporate collections (Microsoft WPGI, OPW, HSE, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Europol & IBM).
For over 30 years I have created bodies of work that are inspired and challenged by my environment and circumstances, which are regularly in flux. The study and analysis of dreams plays a large part in much of my work and the development of dream imagery informs the iconography used in both visual and verbal work.
I have worked on projects in response to a specific brief, site, concept, or combination of these. I am fascinated with the immediacy of temporary work yet equally interested in archives and permanence. While I consider myself primarily a painter, I love to experience and experiment with any manner of media. I freely use any media to suit an idea, which is the paramount consideration.
I believe that it is through the expression of individual responses to life circumstances that wider truths can be discovered and understood.
I am an artist. I am here. I remember. I draw. I write. I tell stories.