South Tipperary Arts Exhibition is hosting an interesting painting and sound installation

Currently showing at South  Tipperary Arts Centre, I will not flower by Sarah Long is an installation of painting and sound that reflects on the potential allegorical qualities of the fern plant.

The fern’s ability to reproduce asexually and sexually through the production of spores, alongside its primeval origins, has generated a rich mythology, in particular that of the imaginary ‘fern flower’.

Sarah says, “I use the fern to consider its potential allegorical qualities. The fern’s ability to reproduce asexually and sexually through the production of spores, alongside its primeval origins, has generated a rich mythology, in particular that of the imaginary ‘fern flower’.

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Thinking through the interchangeability of ‘mother’ and ‘woman’ in the Irish constitution, this body of work seeks to relate the female to the Jungian archetype of the trickster or the shapeshifter over the traditional mother role. The painting installation Looking for the Fern Flower considers the fern plant in relation to the Mother Ireland archetype. In these paintings, I eschew depicting the female body and instead positions the ‘bodily’ in the framework of the landscape to contest the historical male gaze. Within this framework, I engage with feminine methods of both figuration (employing plants as allegorical motifs) and abstraction (indexing of the body through gesture).”

This work is part of a larger project Death & Dreams which is a work of autofiction that encompasses painting, performance, sound, moving image, and long form text.

The work engages with the Mother Ireland figure and reflects on repressed feminine archetypes.

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Sarah is based in Cork City. Her practice is concerned with the idea of the landscape as a receptacle of human ideas—a place where nature and allegory are intrinsically intertwined. She makes drawings, paintings, installations and moving image work that reflect on the present relationship with the Irish landscape. The landscape acts as a framework for her practice, allowing the work to reflect on suppressed feminine archetypes and the influence of Irish history and literature on both our cultural memory and our current collective perspective of space.

“I am delighted to be showing at STAC. It is an immense privilege in a time where space has been made so scarce to have the opportunity to present my work. I am really grateful for all the support I have received from Helena Tobin and the STAC team,” said Sarah.