Veiling

In Irish folklore, the Pleiades (An Stróilín or ‘the little stream/string’ in Irish) are concurrent with harvest time, and preparation for the darkest, most harsh part of the year. Alcyone, my star of focus, is at the heart of the Pleiades and is associated with psychic vision as well as expanded perception beyond the material world. I see Alcyone’s influence as an interweaving mediator between the cosmic and terrestrial, bringing introspective light into the darkest part of the year, illuminating the spaces that may be forgotten during the active seasons. Alcyone

Using Alcyone as a lens, I have been working with the bramble, a plant I contend with daily in its dominance of my garden. The bramble is a plant that resists containment, sprouting and spreading vigorously through the land, but rewards us by turning into a nutritious berry in the Autumn. 

In this sculpture Veiling, presented as a cubic framework of interwoven objects, a curtain is pulled back to reveal a tiny space beyond. This curious underlying structure invites viewers to peek inside the timber frame and see as a bramble plant seems to be expanded past its physical limits and into an interstitial space, moving between digital and organic matter.

Dried and 3D scanned leaves sit beside each other amongst images of verdant 3D scans of the same plant — the whole structure becoming an examination of liminal changing states, between alive and dead, between digital and physical. A close examination encourages the viewer to move around the sculpture, comparing the real leaf with the digital ones.

Technology expands our senses and understandings of the organic, allowing us to see what is previously unseeable.

Perhaps technology tries to aim for Alcyone’s postsensory perception, structure or chaos

Yet there is also a melancholy alongside an expanded perception — seeing too deeply, knowing too much. Alcyone is seen most clearly during the darkest half of the year.

2026

Mixed media sculpture

65 × 65 × 65 cm