Herbeieilendes Licht — Deirdre O'Leary

deirdre o’leary — visual artist

2025
Herbeieilendes Licht,
studio view, detail

Herbeieilendes Licht (Approaching Light, Accelerating) 2025

2025
Herbeieilendes Licht (Approaching Light, Accelerating)

The shape moving across the paper is an abstraction of a river, flowing in waves. Perhaps the countless imprints resemble a swarm, a school of fish. In their unity a gust of wind sweeping though a field of grain. This print depicts movement on both large and small scale. A river is seen through the variation in flow. The title Herbeieilendes Licht (Approaching Light, Accelerating) is a spell and a reference to having laid out the printing plates in front of the window, exposing them to sunlight before cutting to make them softer. Relief printing, also called embossing, is a printing technique in which a printing template is pressed into damp paper to create a relief-like impression - entirely without the use of ink. These works are firmly rooted in the tactile quality of the paper yet seem to extend, maybe due to the size of the print, beyond the two-dimensionality of the paper. I cut the template into leftover pieces of old linoleum floors, thereby reusing the remnants from local flooring contractors. The visually reduced imagery of relief printing is drawn by lines of shadow, changing depending on the incidence of light. Relief printing requiers. a willingness to pay attention - Pay attention motherfucker! was a duo exhibition in Geneva and it’s title resurfaces once in a while.

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deirdre o’leary

currently works between Cork (IE) and Basel (CH), where she is embedding engagement in collaborative projects with artists and transdisciplinary practitioners. Her work focuses on the intersection between ecology and art.

deirdre o’leary — visual artist

Herbeieilendes Licht (Approaching Light, Accelerating) 2025

deirdre o’leary

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