Artwork by Lorraine Whelan . . .

Signal Arts Centre Residency 2020

I was supposed to again be resident in the upstairs studio, for ten weeks from Oct-Dec, but was interrupted by lockdown due to coronavirus, hence I worked from home for the month of November. However, I had already decided that I would focus on papermaking and printmaking, as well as a daily self-portrait warm-up. I had taken a zoom workshop in silk-fibre papermaking over the summer, and found this a straightforward technique and one that I could pursue while at Signal. I also thought the silk-fibre paper would provide a beautiful surface for unique prints. I had the first month in which to make this paper, which was plenty of time to complete my plans for it. With lockdown, once I had brought the portable press back home, I treated my time at home as if I was at Signal daily. I did editions of ten for each of the small linoblocks I had made (started at Signal and completed at home) and made a corresponding unique print on silk-fibre paper, as originally planned. While at Signal I had received positive news of an offer for exhibition of my current work, Memory Is My Homeland, at the beautiful Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin. Buoyed by this news, my work took on new momentum. For further information on this body of work please see my printmaking and painting : Memory Is My Homeland sections. I was able to return to the Signal studio when the lockdown loosened at the beginning of December. Since the majority of work that I planned (papermaking and printmaking) was by this time complete, I used the studio time to work on my writing and continued to do daily self portraits.

Image Details

  • self-portrait: As I had done in my 2018 & 2019 residencies, a daily self portrait proved to be both a record of time and a fabulous warm-up exercise.
  • silk-fibre papermaking: I had taken a zoom workshop in making this type of paper, which I found quite beautiful and straightforward to make. Acquiring appropriate materials, I made more sheets of the paper while in the Signal studio for the purpose of using as grounds for lino prints.
  • printing: I borrowed a small press and installed it in the studio, but due to the lockdown in November, I had to bring it back to my home and work on printing there. Every morning I commandeered the kitchen (I needed running water) and the living room to be workspaces. I was able to complete an edition of ten prints plus one unique print on silk-fibre paper, leaving them to dry on a blanket on the floor (taking up the entire floorspace in the room) and clean up my tools before lunch!
  • writing: I used the last couple of weeks of my residency to catch up on transcription from my dream diaries (which have been an artistic resource for me for the past 40 years). It is necessary to type out the scribbles while I can still understand my own writing! I was also working on a transcription of an interview with my father from 1987.

I was born in Toronto, Canada into a large Irish immigrant family. Shortly after obtaining my primary degree in 1986, I moved to Ireland to where my parents and half my siblings had already returned.

My writing (poetry, art criticism & commentary, fiction, non-fiction) has been published in Ireland, Canada, USA, Luxembourg & online.

I have exhibited my artwork throughout Ireland in both solo and group exhibitions and have exhibited in group exhibitions in France, China and Canada. I have participated in artist residencies and symposia and my work is included in private (US, Canada, Australia, UK & Belgium) and in public/corporate collections (Microsoft WPGI, OPW, HSE, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Europol & IBM).

For over 30 years I have created bodies of work that are inspired and challenged by my environment and circumstances, which are regularly in flux. The study and analysis of dreams plays a large part in much of my work and the development of dream imagery informs the iconography used in both visual and verbal work.

I have worked on projects in response to a specific brief, site, concept, or combination of these. I am fascinated with the immediacy of temporary work yet equally interested in archives and permanence. While I consider myself primarily a painter, I love to experience and experiment with any manner of media. I freely use any media to suit an idea, which is the paramount consideration.

I believe that it is through the expression of individual responses to life circumstances that wider truths can be discovered and understood.

I am an artist. I am here. I remember. I draw. I write. I tell stories.