Lucy McKenna

Solo exhibition for a 6-12 year old audience, at Cabra Library, Dublin. Curated by Sheena Barrett for IMMA.

23rd April - 15th June 2024

This exhibition explores High Strangeness; ideas and stories at the edge of our understanding of the universe. The work was research based, specifically in the phenomenon of magical lights appearing in the Irish landscape, as documented by children from 1937 to 1939 in the National Folklore Collection, UCD. The stories were collected by children from adults in their locality; some are first-hand witness accounts while others are stories passed along from others, spanning many generations. The research I carried out was funded by UCD College of Arts & Humanities as I was awarded the Joseph M. Hassett bursary for Visual Art. I took these stories as an entry point into thinking about magic, science, and our place in the universe. The stories’ beauty is in the descriptions of, the respect for, and the holding of belief in the otherworldly, as well as the role of children as the primary investigators, gatherers and passers-on of these phenomenal lived-experiences for the future generations of Ireland. In capturing the stories, the children were open-minded, unbiased and uncynical, curious and interested. These accounts are part detective work and part documentation.

High Strangeness places today’s children in the position of children of the 1930s—giving them a doorway to think critically, to investigate the works using active ‘looking’ to draw their own conclusions. This exhibition also includes drawings based on photos from the Hubble telescope, near-Earth objects and asteroids. There are sculptures of mysterious objects that may or may not be from Earth, fragments of objects mentioned in the stories, bound together by magical forces. A sense of intrigue surrounds the strange lettering on the exhibition space’s wall: a message in a code yet to be deciphered, seemingly pulled by an unseen energy force in the room.

High Strangeness is accompanied by a new poem by Enda Wyley.

From April to mid-June 2024, IMMA’s Visitor Engagement Team will facilitate art workshops in Cabra Library for primary school classes.

This work was supported by partners IMMA, Dublin City Council, Dublin City Libraries and UCD College of Arts & Humanities.

Images are by photographer Louis Haugh.

Solo exhibition at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co. Meath. Curated by Brenda McParland.

20th August - 22nd October 2022

An evolutionary design by nature paired with an innocent and optimistic refusal to quit, plants combine the vast universe and the quantum realm in one. Biological growth pulls fuel from light, transforming blue and red photons to energy, expanding in space through time. In Ireland, our native plants have performed this scientific act for centuries, linking hands with the star in our solar system on a daily cycle, while also being bound up in our human folklore and culture, serving medical purposes, providing magical protection and being a vessel for our storytelling.

The exhibition title A Dormant Light Resides in The Eye comes from the book ‘Bright Colors Falsely Seen’ [Dann, 1998], which navigates the interesting history of synaesthesia up until the modern day. The quotation ‘a dormant light resides in the eye’ comes directly from German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in the late 1700’s, who believed that the eye owed its existence to light.

This exhibition of new works includes drawing, print, photography, sculptural acrylic and light installations. The work explores communication and language with hypothetical civilizations beyond our own planet, as well as research that is broadly about the universe and comprehending our place within it, often referencing folklore, mythology and spirituality. Recently, as the world changed tempo and shifted focus, I personally developed a new interest in plants and gardening. The process of planting, curating by colour, texture, size and time informed this new body of work.

The exhibition brings the visitor on a journey beginning with imagined groundwork, a folded origami piece with research notes, botanical carbon prints with native plants imbued with mythology as test subjects, and an unfamiliar language that could travel as lightwaves ahead of a botanist as a self-assembling message for any life form it meets. Small drawings depict recent astronomical travellers within our solar system: 67p, Halley’s Comet, GN1 and our first known interstellar visitor - Oumuamua.

Making your own journey as an astronomical botanist, a blueprint lays out a roadmap and an AI voice describes an unfamiliar world. Lifeforms begin to make themselves known, growing in and out of substrates, melting, swimming, blending and communicating through colour.

In this other universe, life is powerful and alluring, 2 dimensions and 3 dimensions rotate, appearing and disappearing. The Holographic Universe becomes tangible and the fabric of visible reality is pulled back. Quantum particles are cast in light and the nature of information becomes visible. Organic plant-like life speaks to the multiple energy sources in its sky and it is down to the botanist as visitor to make new discoveries.

Exhibition photographs by Lee Welch.

Take a 3D Matterport tour of the exhibition here.

Read VAI review of the exhibition by Aengus Woods here.

We Didn’t Move… [2013] was shot at Montpelier Hill, Dublin - a site with numerous UFO sightings.

July 2022

It was also shot at a second location on the grounds of medieval Kilkenny Castle, capturing a cherry blossom tree which flowers for a brief time annually. The audio is performed by the artist, narrating excerpts of interview correspondence with UFO abductee Alexander Leon, based in the UK. This work describes the impact of these occurrences on one individual’s life, bearing the weight of keeping it a secret.

Shot on Super 8 Ektachrome 100D film. Running time: 5 minutes, 56 seconds. This piece was created in 2013 but screened again in an extended, triple screen format on Iput Living Canvas at Wilton Place, Dublin through July- Sept 2022.

This 18 metre long commission was reworked from an original vinyl installation in 2017 to this lasercut acrylic piece in 2022. It wraps around 5 walls in a research location inspired by the experiments with light refraction that is part of the work there.

June 2022

In Perpetuity, is a work in progress that describes a language for communication with extra-solar civilisations. At its beginning is a consideration of the particle-wave phenomenon in quantum physics, where particles behave differently when they ‘know’ they are being observed. In Perpetuity considers a language that may behave differently when being observed by multiple observers. This work is an alphabet as a visual vehicle for meaning and mode of transferring information. It considers the functionality of how a new alphabet might appear under certain conditions and travel vast times and distances to transfer information, rather than what the information might be in itself. It is downloadable here as a TrueType font.

Ollphéist (transl. from Irish: Fabulous Beasts) was a project by Ormston House Limerick exploring folkloric heritage through a workshops program and city-wide exhibition. Bringing the tradition of storytelling into the digital world, Ollphéist facilitated re-tellings and new interpretations of Irish folklore through the medium of GIFs by multiple artists. Curated by Caimin Walsh.

Oct 2020

I created three GIF’s, of which one - ‘Buried Gold’ was exhibited with Ormston House for Ollphéist. The GIFs tell condensed stories of folklore from my home place Kilkenny, Ireland. The stories were researched from the National Folklore Archive.

Site specific commissioned legacy artwork for the IDA Headquarters off Stephens Green Dublin, to celebrate their 70 year anniversary.

Oct 2019

For this piece I worked with publicly available data on the IDA including numbers employed, client companies partnered with, direct and indirect national employment figures, charity partners, board members and others. The piece represents an accumulation of 70 years of work carried out and connections made as well as being a visually interpreted cloud of numbers. The base structure of the cloud is In Perpetuity, a freely downloadable TrueType font that can have various meanings attached to its letters.

The Park Project IV. Residency and installation/ performance at Moylurg Tower, Lough Key Forest Park. Curated by Linda Shevlin with Roscommon County Council Arts Office.

7pm | 26th January, 2019

Subliminal messages are stimuli that lie below our threshold of conscious awareness, but if concealed messages are experienced, can our minds construct a hidden world behind the conscious curtain? These subtleties could be overlooked in our day to day lives, but perhaps there exists key markers for unlocking a moment where the Universe reveals it's inner workings to us. Using local history and folklore, I approached Lough Key Forest Park as a location to peel back a layer of reality and reveal the potential for sublime visions, experiences and information. The Park has experienced sightings of mermaids, UFO's, giants, ghosts, lights in the sky and portals to other places. Time has elongated, shortened, or disappeared altogether. To experience the sublime is to experience something which is momentarily, paralysingly beautiful, but also evokes fear and commands respect. The event consisted of a series of light installations, 3 x 6minute audio works based on local stories and research on the Irish Folklore Commission, and a performance at the top of the tower which culminated in a coordinated fireworks display.

The event also marked the launch of a newly commissioned text by Visual Art Writer in Residence, Joanne Laws.

This project was commissioned by Roscommon County Council Arts Office.
With special thanks to the management and staff of Lough Key Forest Park.
and also to Black Powder Monkey for their contribution to the project.

Site specific commission for Kilkenny Education Centre to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

Jan 2019

This piece was developed in collaboration with KEC staff who provided spreadsheets of data about work carried out in the organisation in recent years. The acrylic cut shapes each pertain to a specific piece of data collected. Shapes, opacity, colour, size were all determined through my data visualisation process and I translated these to cut shapes. The piece was composed and installed on site. Nubecula means small cloud in latin. This is a reference to the data cloud we all connect to, but also the electron cloud that orbits atoms.

Harrington Studios, Boyle, Roscommon as part of artist-in-residence for Park Project IV.

21st Sept 2018

Site specific light installations in the studio

Residency at ISCP International Studio + Curatorial Program, Brooklyn NY, USA. 

Sept - Dec 2017

These are a series of woven drawings using synthetic materials and light. They loosely describe qualities of various quantum particles, and are part of an ongoing project using data visualisation to make a model of quantum physics. 

Group exhibition at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan. Curated by Sabina Mac Mahon. 

October 2017

Inspired by Louth artist Nano Reid’s interest in the Boyne landscape and a fascination with how past and present, history and myth co-exist simultaneously in the ancient monuments of Knowth, Dowth, Newgrange and Tara, The Otherworld Hall invited participating artists to interrogate Meath’s archaeological heritage and explore the intriguing convergence of fact and fiction represented by the Boyne Valley tombs. By doing so, the exhibition invited artists and visitors alike to reconsider their preconceived notions of how and why these monuments came to be, and what stories they might really tell.

Lasercut paper installation. Commission for Paper Assist in their showroom, Dublin. 

August 2017

This work is a physical manifestation of the Cameroon jungle in the science fiction novel The Crystal World by J.G. Ballard. 

"The long arc of trees hanging over the water seemed to drip and glitter with myriads of prisms, the trunks and branches sheathed by bars of yellow and carmine light that bled away across the surface of the water, as if the whole scene were being reproduced by some over-active technicolor process…" Then the coruscation subsided, and the images of the individual trees reappeared, each sheathed in its armour of light, foliage glowing as if loaded with deliquescing jewels.…" This illuminated forest in some way reflects an earlier period of our lives, perhaps an archaic memory we are born with of some ancestral paradise where the unity of time and space is the signature of every leaf and flower…." Just as a super-saturated solution will discharge itself into a crystalline mass, so the super-saturation of our solar system leads to its appearance in a parallel spatial matrix. As more and more time leaks away, the process of super-saturation continues.. It’s as if a sequence of displaced but identical images of the same object were being produced by refraction through a prism, but with the element of time replacing the role of light.”

Vinyl Installation for Facebook AIR Program in one of their research and development sites, undisclosed location. 

August 2017

Vinyl Installation, 15 shop windows on Dominick St, and Galway Arts Centre wall,  as part of The Golden Record exhibition during the Galway Arts Festival, Galway. Photos by Tom Flanagan.

July 2017

Work in Progress, Atrium Space, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin 2.

April 2017

In Perpetuity, is a work in progress that describes a language for communication with extra-solar civilisations. At its beginning is a consideration of the particle-wave phenomenon in quantum physics, where particles behave differently when they ‘know’ they are being observed. In Perpetuity considers a language that may behave differently when being observed by multiple observers. This work is an alphabet as a visual vehicle for meaning and mode of transferring information. It considers the functionality of how a new alphabet might appear under certain conditions and travel vast times and distances to transfer information, rather than what the information might be in itself. It is downloadable here as a TrueType font.  

The Facebook AIR Program commissions site-specific artworks by local artists in their offices. 

Inspired by the Voyager Golden Records created to go on board Voyagers 1 & 2, group exhibition The Golden Record in the Galway Arts Centre looked at our need to record, document and create objects to make sense of the world and our place within it.

Atrium Space features TBG+S studio artists who are invited to exhibit their work in the Atrium of the TBG+S building. The intention is to create an active space outside of the studio and the gallery to exhibit finished work or work in progress.

Cube Space, The Lab Gallery, Dublin 1.

March 2017

Astronomical Mashup explores our particular relationship with Mars, referencing science fiction, google searches, scientific research and experiments to try to make sense of this seemingly unrequited relationship.  I collaborated across time with astronomer Charles Burton, working from his observations of Mars canals in the 19th century to capture its allure while simultaneously showing menacing red vines referencing HG Wells’s, War of the Worlds.  In a further collapsing of time, Pleiades, a star cluster 444 light years away, is captured on a domestic light bulb, developed at a recent residency at Armagh Space Observatory. Our fascination with extra terrestrial life is portrayed through a data visualisation of Google searches on the subject. There is a playfulness and optimistic curiosity evident in the range of materials and sources of information in spite of the inevitable reminder of our frailty faced with the immensity of this mesmerizing lump of rock.

Selected photos by Peter Varga.

Artist in Residence at Armagh Planetarium and Space Observatory, with Catalyst Arts.

February + March 2016

I was invited to be artist in residence at Armagh Space Observatory by Catalyst Arts in Spring 2016 for 2 months. During my time there I became interested in the now-dormant practice of dry plate astrophotography, and began to investigate how I could make dry plate photographs on glass myself. With the help of the astronomers working in the Observatory I researched the methods of doing this and built my own dry plate camera to fit their 131-year old Grubb Telescope. I sourced 60-year-old scientific plates and used these to make test photographs. My relationship continues with the Observatory through 2016 as I continue to use their telescope and their expertise in my attempts to capture distant astronomical bodies such as the Moon, planets and star clusters on these original photographic plates. I also carried out research on 19th Century Irish astronomer Charles E. Burton during my time on residency and have been making collaborative works with him across the boundaries of time and death. This project is ongoing.

Persistence Of Vision

Dec 2015

I was invited to make the Christmas .GIF for Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. The central circle of the image is a phenakistascope, a single image that rotates but ends up looking like a GIF because of the persistence of vision principle, giving the illusion of motion. Santa observes the spinning sphere like God while the Three Wise Men chase a star that turns out to be a UFO. The spacecraft beams down the baby Jesus through the Christmas trees into a black hole, surrounded by Christmas candles at the event horizon. The .GIF is a Sci-Fi take on the kind of blind faith in magic that Christmas is filled with.

Commission for Facebook EMEA HQ in Dublin. 

October 2015

Following my residency at Facebook HQ where I worked with ideas of global connectivity and data visualisation I was commissioned for an additional artwork by Facebook. During the residency I had adapted visualisation software created for biological data mapping, and using it to make maps of data files supplied by various departments within Facebook. The data files included information on advertising sales, global governmental requests, user numbers, staff catering and locations of data centres among others. Nexus is a wallpaper artwork using data visualisation from spreadsheets supplied by internal teams. The wallpaper visualises work done in this office during the first 6 months of 2015. Each department received the key for the visual map and can read the information specific to their department in the artwork.

Selected photos by Ros Kavanagh.

Artist in Residence at Facebook EMEA HQ in Dublin. 

June - October 2015

I worked with ideas of global connectivity and data visualisation during my 5 month residency at Facebook HQ, adapting visualisation software created for biological data mapping, and using it to make maps of data files supplied by various departments within Facebook. The data files included information on advertising sales, global governmental requests, user numbers, staff catering and locations of data centres among others. Orrery, the installation that developed from this was the result of the residency program and my research there and takes it's forms from the data mapping, as well as looking at Facebook's global offices as a larger, balanced, connected network. As part of my residency I was required to complete a risograph print for use within Facebook, which I made in the form of an A5 book 'Things To Consider' and badges which were distrubuted to staff.

Selected photos by Ros Kavanagh.

Works for group exhibition 'Action At A Distance: The Life + Legacy of John Stewart Bell', Naughton Gallery, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

November 2014

These digital prints are mirrored segments of a diagram that was hand-drawn in coloured biro by a scientist in the Control Room of the Large Hadron Collider, CERN in 2012. The diagram's meaning and annotation is unknown except that it pertains to the LHC. The finished works were printed as wallpaper which covered the gallery walls.

Solo exhibition of work at The Source Arts Centre, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

 Sept - Oct 2014

This body of work aimed to transform gallery space into a temporary environment where diverging theories about existence overlap. The work explores the diversity of belief systems and their enactment through analogue and digital processes in humankind's attempts to understand it's place in the Universe. Science, folklore, religion and superstitious traditions feed into the work. The Lacuna in Parallax investigates the lacuna, or missing information, that may reside in the spaces between these different points of view. Two of the works, Herschel and Rosetta were a collaboration with astronomer, Nick Howes, wherein I drew some of his photographs of distant manmade spacecraft.

Selected images by Ross Costigan Photography and Studio Ten Media.

July + August 2013

These are two site-specific works created for Fennelly's, Callan, Co. Kilkenny during the Abhainn Rí Festival 2013. 

The works were created in response to Callan town and its history following a research residency in Fennellys co-ordinated by curator Etaoin Holahan. 

Holy Bubbles video work, 3min 10sec can be viewed on vimeo here. It features the voices of local Callan schoolgirls Megan Ryan and Zoe Ramsbottom on the audio track.

Made with the kind assistance of the Hubble Legacy Archive and Gooch & Housego Optics. This work was shown in Axis: Ballymun, Dublin. 

Jan 2013

Quantum Entanglement hypothesizes the appearance of behaviours of matter on a quantum level. It focuses on the strangeness of certain forces, which have mechanical and logical rules of action but seem absurd to us on a human scale. The works merge the logic of these actual behaviours with the mystical explanations of humans for misunderstood observances. 

A short video showing the inside the Galaxy Dioramas can be viewed on Vimeo here.

Funded by Kilkenny County Council and the Irish Arts Council. Installed for Kilkenny Arts Festival on St. Mary's Lane, Kilkenny.

August 2012

This installation hung between a modern building and a medieval one, connecting the two. It fuses two models of the atom, one being the flat version with shells containing electrons, and the other being the updated model which depicts a cloud of electrons moving around the nucleus of the atom. In the updated model, only the position or the momentum of the electrons can be known, but both cannot be known at the same time.

Photography of large scale public installation by Ross Costigan Photography.

Body of work created on residency in Artscape Toronto, Canada. Funded by the Kilkenny Borough Council, Kilkenny County Council, Culture Ireland and the Irish Arts Council. This body of work was also exhibited in GalleryWest, Toronto from July 4th - 27th 2013.

2011

This work developed from readings of folklore, merged with the traumatic natural history of Toronto Island where the trees were burned in the 1970's in an attempt to clear the island for corporate development.  The island is now a public park and nature sanctuary and many of the trees still bear the scars of burning. 

These works were created during a residency at NES artist residency in Skagaströnd, a town on a northern peninsula of Iceland. 

2009

The works were created in response to the town's folklore and its own perception of itself over the past two decades resulting from the reduction of its population due to extreme weather changes and the disappearance of the fishing shoals in the 1980's. 

The video work Fish Freezing Factory features some audio samples from Icelandic band Múm.