Image Courtesy of Kari Cahill
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KARI CAHILL
KARI CAHILL is an artist who lives and works in Ireland. She writes: “In my personal visual arts practice I describe myself primarily as a painter. My work explores landscape through colour. Visually, I create bold, visceral works that stretch between two and three dimensions. My work is often site-responsive and my large scale works are created and exhibited in remote, wild locations, inviting my audience to experience the works in situ. Themes of environment, community, heritage and collaboration are intrinsic to, and reflected in my work. I drip, scrape, bruise and blush colour onto surfaces.
Not only do I respond to the landscape but I create colour from within the landscape. The process of creating paints and pigments from materials gathered at specific locations has allowed me to contrast factory produced colours with a more sustainably centred approach to making. From discarded urban remnants to wild foraged materials I have built up a unique paintbox of colours. The act of searching for the colours forces me to approach the environment with a bold investigation, and as is an much part of the process as the resulting palette. Community plays a vital role in discovering colour. Locals know their landscapes like the back of their hands. My practice has lead me to explore a scatter of locations throughout the country. From the sandy shores of Ballinskelligs in Kerry to the majestic marine lake of Lough Hyne. My work has looked at how the Atlantic crashes against the coast at Brow Head heading north to the Cliffs of Moher up to Glassilaun Beach in Connemara. More recently I visited Arranmore Island off the cost of Donegal, trekking to the Giant’s Causeway and all along the Northern Coast down through the Gencollumcille Pass to An Port Donegal. These explorations have led me to create distinct archives of colour from each location.
I have created a series of workshops that highlight the need for place-making in our society through colour foraging and making. These workshops offer communities an opportunity to unpack ideas around belonging, ownership, and public spaces, through physical interaction with sites. The workshops offer participants a space to explore ideas around identity.
I have conceived, developed and produced a visual arts organisation, Lay of the Land, that strives to support artists and communities through the production of art. LOTL produces powerful, imaginative and considered projects that encourages artists and audiences to engage with the landscape. By working within the public realm, this work has the potential to engage with an audience both inside and outside of art institutions and galleries. Audiences are presented with work that speaks about sustainability and awareness of our environments through exciting interventions.Throughout the last 10 years I have been running my art practice alongside, and often integrated within, my site-responsive visual arts organisation Lay of the Land. My own work focuses on colour as a means to investigate landscapes, and Lay of the Land investigates environments through engaging outdoor exhibitions and residencies that empower artists and communities to respond to landscape collaboratively.
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