Róisín Lewis 2023

Róisín Lewis
2 August to 2 September 2023

Róisín Lewis’s work is a response to slow journeys through the landscape. Rhythm reduces effort, as the saying goes. Not stopping to sketch or take photographs, Lewis gathers memories and occasionally objects, as she travels while also using body-worn technology to record biometric and geographical data.

Back in the studio, data is downloaded and paths travelled are retraced on paper. Objects gathered in the landscape are studied, drawn and manipulated. These activities encourage memories, observations and other sensory and rhythmical experiences to resurface, which in turn inform the use of materials, processes and color. The work also draws on indigenous building techniques and approaches to textile construction – slow repetitive processes that are analogous to the rhythm of the journeying body, as well as on mapping and surveying techniques.The work grows through the repetition of simple gestures. An underlying structure or rule determines the initial composition and forms develop in accordance with data collected. But the artist is not a machine. Irregularities, accidents and traces of the body that result from making by hand, also play a part. In this way, the work evolves through a combination of order, memory, chance and intuition.

During the month of August, Róisín will focus on developing and completing a body of work based on research carried out while in residency at WAC two years ago. On this occasion, field work will focus on bicycle journeys from Turkhead at the mouth of the Ilen river to the studio in Skibbereen. She aim’s to make a finished body of work combining text and colour, audio recordings biometric and geographical data and specimens of wildflowers. This work will form part of a solo exhibition in Ballina Arts Center in 2024.

Róisín Lewis is currently based in Dublin. Since graduating from NCAD in 1996 her work has been exhibited in Ireland and abroad, most recently at The Custom House Gallery, Westport, SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin, Assab One, Milan, Atelier des Empreintes, Pays de la Loire, and Yanagisawa Gallery, Tokyo. She has been awarded residencies at IMMA, Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin, the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Connecticut (2017), Thread, Senegal (2019), West Cork Arts Centre (2021, 2023) and also the RHA Clare Island Residency (2022). Her practice is currently supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

www.roisinlewis.com

WCAC acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Cork County Council in making these residencies possible