Murrough O'Donovan

Murrough O’Donovan
21 May to 19 July 2025

Studio Open to the Public on Monday, Tuesday, Saturday

My work explores environmental and ecological destruction. I represent this violent and systemic destruction through the carving of branches and logs that I then display in installations. I use trees as a representation for the world taking inspiration from various world mythologies and the Jungian ‘World Tree’ archetype, and to represent the disconnection from nature in our culture and society that leads to the fracturing of ecosystems around the world.

I manipulate the wood through intentionally violent processes such as sawing and drilling to create pieces that while retaining much of their original, natural shape, appear attacked and mutilated.

Through this residency I wish to expand my research base in trees and their significance culturally and spiritually to indigenous peoples around the world particularly currently and historically. Taking inspiration from Irish author Manchán Magan and Australian Aboriginal author Tyson Yunkapatora I hope to explore how our loss of these cultural ties to the landscape can be tied to the processes of ecological destruction and how reconnecting with certain aspects of indigenous culture and thinking could potentially help us create a more sustainable culture that can eventually co exist with the natural world. I would also like to bring the Irish language into my practice in some manner, something I have never experimented with before.

Something new I wish to bring to my practice is combining dead pieces of wood with living plants and potentially creating permanent or ephemeral works in outdoor spaces. Particularly I wish to create pieces of work that interact with the forests around my house outside of Skibbereen contrasting areas of natural grow with invasive plants and sitka spruce plantations. While doing all of this I would still like to create some form of sculpture using found objects.

I would like to connect with the environmental science community in West cork and with the wider public in general to in some way create a project that attempts to combine an attempt at reconnecting with ancient Irish thinking with a rewilding project. Potentially creating a ‘ritualistic space’ in the woods using native plants.
“.. recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilising control over what some see as chaos.” – Tyson Yunkapatora, Sand Talk

I was born in 2000 in London and moved with my family back to the family farm outside Skibbereen in 2009. I completed a QQI level 5 in Art & Design at Cork College of Commerce before continuing my studies at Crawford College of Art and Design. I graduated with First Class Honours in Fine Art. I was awarded the Ciaran Langford Memorial Bursary by Backwater Studios and a residency with the sculpture department at Crawford College for my work displayed at the MTU 2024 Degree Show ‘Lest We Salt the Earth’ as well as being long lister for the RDS.

@murroughodart

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