Aquacious – Solo show at Interface Inagh Art
Centre May/June 2025
This multi-media exhibition reveals the final outcomes of the research into the sublime by creating an experience which mixes the beautiful and the unsettling, highlighting water’s splendour while at the same time hinting as its more disturbing sides.
Aquacious is an emotional voyage within the sea, encountering the human relationship with water. It begins, in the first gallery, with the wild seas of ‘The Storm Series’. Dusky, hazy turbulent water exposing the power and dangers, but also the great beauty of the sea. Juxtaposed at the end of the room is a collection of brightly coloured portraits of ‘The Immersionists’, a focus group of sea swimmers. Each portrait is accompanied by an extract of ethnographical interviews giving insight into the relationship between each individual and the sea.
A shelf of vials of water from microscopic experiments leads us into the second dark gallery where ‘The Moonlight Series’ of almost monochrome images of the moonlit shapes and patterns dancing on the sea revealing hidden rainbows in the moonlight. These images are spot lit in the darkened room drawing the viewer into the strange forms.
Subsequently ‘The Changing Face of Water’, a large lightbox, illuminates round microscopic images, the results from an experiment showing how humans interaction with water can change the ‘face’ of water.
Finally at the far end of the room is a totally immersive 3-screen projection of the sea ‘Water Rhythms’ Accompanied by hydrophonic rhythms and external sounds of the sea. This is the climax of the voyage as the viewer relaxes on the sofas immersed in unrecognizable images and sounds of the sea illustrating ‘the Immersionists’ relationship with the sea.