Persistence of Trace
Gallery Talk

On the occasion of the exhibition Persistence of Trace, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre presents a Gallery Talk with artists Barbara Diener, Sophie Gough and Áine Ryan.

An exhibition of new and recent work by four artists – Barbara Diener, Sophie Gough, Sarah Long and Áine Ryan who share an interest in identity and other intersecting concerns – memory, time and representation. All four are based in Munster and are members of Sample Studios.

westcorkartscentre.com/event/persistence-of-trace/

Barbara Diener’s research-driven practice investigates how history is disseminated and how facts are distorted, embellished or undermined. Her recent work focuses on Spike Island in Cork Harbour, a site with over 1,300 years of layered history—from monastic settlement to military fortress and convict prison. Through archival material, installations and still and moving images, Barbara constructs visual narratives that reflect on memory, time and obsolescence to explore the site’s complex legacy through overlooked stories and traces that remain.

Sophie Gough explores identity as relational and in flux, shaped by memory, place and material encounters. Often through residencies, she develops drawings, sculptures, sound and installations that trace colonial histories and ecological entanglements, treating memory as unstable and embodied while creating spaces balanced between presence and absence, intimacy and vastness.

Sarah Long focuses on suppressed female archetypes, the politics of representation, nationhood and myth through the lens of feminism. Her practice spans painting, installation, performance and writing. She identifies reverberations in Irish culture and combines these references with personal stories and motifs. She views this rearranging and reinterpreting of histories and visualities as an act of feminist fictioning, highlighting moments and ideas that haunt, shape and subjugate our collective consciousness.

Áine Ryan’s practice is rooted in personal experience, shaped by a cancer diagnosis in her late twenties that transformed her relationship with her body, identity and environment. Returning to her family’s farm during recovery, she re-engaged with rural life while confronting the lasting effects of treatment on appearance, fertility and mental health. Her work explores feminine identity within patriarchal and rural contexts, often drawing on mythology and ecofeminist perspectives. In current research inspired by the myth of Io, Ryan employs farm materials and equipment to examine silenced femininity, the objectification of women and nature, and the undervalued role of women in farming families.