Lorna Donlon
Photo 1: "Evening Scent Of Gorse". Paper collage, 12 inches square (30.5cm x 30.5cm), 2019
Photo 2: "Italian Morning Breakfast Miracle". Paper collage, 12 inches square, 2019
Photo 3: "Luca Turin Reads The Green Air". Paper collage, 12 inches square, 2019
Bio
Lorna Donlon lives and works in Dublin. She has completed studies at The National College of Art & Design, Dublin; Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland; with Archie Brennan in Washington D.C.; Lynne Curran in Tuscany; and most recently received a BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology from UCD in 2020. Prior to this she spent many years teaching at Grennan Mill Craft School in Kilkenny. A tapestry weaver, textile and installation artist, she is interested in the scientific practices of collecting, catagorising, labelling and displaying objects. Lorna Donlon is currently UCD College of Science Artist in Residence. She was awarded a prestigious Golden Fleece Award in 2021 to support her practice at a critical point in its development. Previously working on a relatively small scale, she plans to dramatically increase the size of her work by building a large vertical tapestry loom and investing in new materials, as well as time to experiment with them.
Photo 4: "Mary Captures Hope's Gentle Gem". Paper collage, 12 inches square, 2019
Photo 5: "Melody In The Kiftsgate". Weaving, 12 inches square, 2019
Photo 6: "Science Gives Us The Weight Of a Bird's Song In Grams". Woven tapestry in progress, 2019
Artists Statement
She describes herself as a magpie who collects, orders, assembles and exhibits objects and ideas that she finds around her as she goes about her daily life. The cabinets of curiosity these objects form draw on a scientific aesthetic of classification and, together with her tapestries and collages, they explore the tradition of narrative, both objective and subjective, and question the distinction between the two. Her displays and arrangements act as storytelling devices, illustrating how storytelling is so deeply embedded and written into us that meaning is inextricably spun into every electrochemical message being sent from our sensory organs to our brain. The stories of the complex interiorised world are foreign to us for all that we carry them around inside us, for it is beyond the capacity of our human senses. Science needs art to tell these stories.
Photo 7: " Science Is Very Near Us - Looking At The Smell Of Evening Gorse". 120 x 120cm, 2021
Photo 8: "The Salve Of Leaf And Flower". Paper collage, 12 inches square, 2019
Photo 9: "Life In The Gorse". 53cm square, 2022
Photo 10: "Woven Sketchbook" - a detail of "Science Is Very Near Us - Looking At The Smell Of Evening Gorse", 2021
