Nature’s own Darkroom is a body of work emerging from Catriona Leahy’s ongoing research into the degraded peatlands in the midlands of Ireland as a result of industrial extraction. The exhibition draws on the relationship between bog and photographic darkroom to speak of the hidden yet precarious state within which both bog and image are held. In its pristine condition, the bog can be thought of as a natural darkroom, with powers similar to those of photography. Just as the photographic negative is kept safe in a latent state within the black box of a camera, so too does the bog remain preserved against time’s relentless march until it is exposed and, in the process, undergoes an irreversible transformation.
Influenced by this relationship, Leahy uses experimental analogue photography, drawing and installation to call attention to the latent yet enduring effects of human intervention on the landscape. With no possibility for return to the original, she cuts, collages and intervenes in her photographic negatives to abstract and reassemble fragmented landscapes. Like the bog, the collaged negatives are composed of layers; they contain sediments and deposits as well as residues of her fingerprints. Her process, akin to the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel as it punctures the skin, resonates with the wounds inflicted on the landscape through extraction. Such parallels invite an uncomfortable association between the body, the vulnerability of skin, and our damaged Earth. Once exposed, the resulting works reveal the scars of her interventions.
While on one hand, Leahy aims to underscore this slow violence inflicted on the landscape, her sensitive handling of material suggests a practice that invokes care. As we face the realities of ecological collapse, how might we collectively tend to our ailing Earth, to suture the wounds and allow time to heal?
Artist Bio
Catriona Leahy is a visual artist based in Dublin and Kildare. Working across analogue photography, print, sculpture, moving image and installation, her work explores deep time environmental histories and the latent effects of human intervention on the landscape. Catriona has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Exhibitions include The Salvage Agency, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts (2024), Radical Archaeologies: Unearthing Landscape in Contemporary Irish Art, The Glucksman Gallery, UCC Cork (2023); Agitation Co-op at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios (2021), How the land lies at Sirius Arts Centre, Cork (2020); Unfolding Landscapes at De Cacaofabriek in Helmond, The Netherlands (2018). She currently works out of her studio at Fire Station Artist Studios as the day studio resident awardee, 2024.
She has been the recipient of numerous international residencies such as The Frans Masereel Centre (2015, 2014, 2009), FLACC Workplace for Visual Artists (2014) – both in Belgium; and The Florence Trust in London (2015 – 2016). She was one of five participants on the first iteration of LEER residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre in 2020/21 (Landscape, Ecology, Environment Research Residency), developed by Dr Sean O’Reilly. She recently undertook a 1-month residency at SIM Association of Icelandic Visual Arts in Reykjavik.
Awards include Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary (2023 & 2024), FSAS Digital Media Practice Award (2022), Kildare Arts ACT Grant (2021 & 2022). Her work is held in the Arts Council Collection, UCC Arts Collection and Office of Public Works Art Collection.
Nature’s Own Darkroom was conceived through funding and support from the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary.
Images: 01. Catriona Leahy, Rupture II, 2024, Graphite drawing and transfer print on Shiohara Japanese Paper, 60cm x 26cm, Image courtesy of the artist.
02. Catriona Leahy, Deep Time Feeling, 2024, Large Format Silver Gelatin Print on Fibre Based Paper, 315cm x 120cm, Image courtesy of the artist.
03. Catriona Leahy, Detail from Above the surface below, 2024, Silver Gelatin Print on resin coated Paper, Red Perspex, Graphite drawing and transfer print on shiohara Japanese paper, bog oak, lump graphite, 200cm x 200cm, Image courtesy of the artist.
Nature’s Own Darkroom was conceived through funding and support from the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary.
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Instagram @catriona.leahy
