STRATA – Sediments of Time

Time is an elemental force, indefinite, intangible and in constant motion. Though it shapes all matter from the

geological to the emotional our attempts to grasp its scale remain limited by the brevity of human life.

STRATA – Sediments of Time presents a cross-section of my ongoing investigation into geological deep time and human

biological time, tracing the points at which these vastly different temporalities intersect and diverge.

My work engages with the physicality of time through stone, both a material and cultural artefact

at once enduring and mutable. By constructing moments that compress immense geological spans alongside fleeting

human instants I am positioning the physical world as a vast record, a surface storing memory, erosion, pressure and

transformation. Natural and manufactured materials including limestone, sandstone, jesmonite, concrete and paper

create a dialogue around how time might be perceived beyond the limits of the human body.

Within the project these materials became carriers of information transforming from natural matter into cultural artefacts that hold

traces of both past and present. Learning the ancient discipline of stone carving during my residency in Leitrim

deepened my relationship with the surrounding landscape, I became fascinated by the exposed bedrock and dramatic

valleys of the region which held stories of its deep geological processes. Each strike of the chisel became a dual

record both instinctive and analytical leaving evidence of a human gesture upon a material shaped over millions of

years. Works such as Ancient Echo and Key, carved from Leitrim sandstone sourced from Glenfarne Quarry

reference prehistoric Irish rock art through cup and ring motifs and symbolic geological markings. These gestures

echo ancient systems of recording knowledge in the landscape suggesting that meaning can persist even when its

original context has faded.

Elsewhere in the project casting and mould making processes explore the tension between natural formation and

human intervention. The Earth Cores act as the central anchor of the exhibition, imagined geological strata built

from cement, sand, limestone and quartz aggregates. These sculptural cores suggest layers accumulated across

immense spans of time inviting viewers to confront temporal scales far beyond everyday perception. Their presence

is amplified by the mural Leitrim Landscape, where geological symbols sweep across the gallery walls mapping the

deep structural movements that formed the land beneath us. The Fossil Series, including Moments in a Lost Sea

and Before Us, extends this reflection further into deep time. Cast from scientific fossil models these works capture

fragments of life from eras that long predate human existence, suggesting worlds that existed before us and may

one day exist again without us.

While some works in the exhibition address deep geological time, others turn toward the intimate scale of human

temporality. In Timeline, discarded wristwatches once personal markers of individuals daily lives are crystallised

using a process of supersaturation and arranged on petri dishes on a bed of sand. Through this process they

become frozen moments of obsolescence, offered symbolically to the geological record where their human histories

might persist within an imagined future stratum. A similar dialogue between fragility and permanence appears in

Forgotten Archive, where cup and ring motifs are blind embossed into paper. By translating some of the earliest

human landscape inscriptions into one of the most delicate materials the work pairs ancient symbolic forms with

contemporary vulnerability.

Throughout my exhibition residency the work was rooted in how materials record the passage of time not only

through their geological formation but also through the cultural meanings we inscribe upon them. Between stone,

science and symbology the Earth continues to reveal itself as an archive whose layers extend far beyond our own

moment in history. Building on the material investigations developed in this exhibition I will now be undertaking a

new interdisciplinary project “Authenticity Machines” in collaboration with researchers in the Geology and

Materials Science departments at the University of Galway. This project will bring my artistic practice into dialogue

with scientific investigation using Raman spectroscopy and imaging technologies to analyse the spectral signatures

of stones and geological samples. Where this current body of work approached materials as repositories of

memory and transformation, this next phase will deepen that inquiry by engaging directly with the tools used to

authenticate and analyse matter. Using scientific data as both evidence and metaphor the project will ask; how do

we recognise the “real” within material substances? and where do natural and manufactured processes blur,

overlap or contradict one another?