Oneiric, Bó Studios Group Exhibition, The Basement Gallery, An Táin Arts Centre Feb - March 2025. Curated by Clara McSweeney.

Exhibition Text

My work explores the fluidity of identity and the performative nature of gender. My pieces, The Other World and Oneiric Silk - evoke the famous philosophical paradox found in Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream, an ancient Chinese Taoist text. In this story, Zhuangzi dreams he is a carefree butterfly, fluttering about in a world of simple beauty and lightness. Upon waking, he is left to question whether he was Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. This thought-provoking tale challenges the boundaries of reality and dreams, self and other, suggesting that identity is not fixed but fluid, slipping between states as effortlessly as a butterfly glides through the air. Similarly, the dreamer’s transformation into a woman draped in silk reflects this same uncertainty—who is the “true” self, does it even matter, and where is here? 

The Process

I have developed a hybrid ritual based on traditional and modern techniques; cyanotype, an early photographic process using light sensitive chemicals, UV light and water and using a computer to create multiple digital negatives, the matrix from which the print is produced.