Pat's Art Blog: Stones of Bray cont'd

Two mixed media pieces.
Using torn pieces of The Bray People (local newspaper) to roughly resemble stones, I superimposed intaglio prints of my interpretation of the fossil Oldhamia Radiata which is found in the the foothills of Bray Head. The colours, a mix of oil and liquin,are inspired by the variety of coloured rocks around Bray Head. I also superimposed a few words of text cut from The Bray People. These random words were selected to bring to mind the early markings of language on stones. The first signs of language were etched on stones in the form of symbols or pictures; the stroke marks of Ogham, or the pictorial symbols on henges and standing stones. There are some very ancient stones in the vicinity of Bray (Rathmichael, Stones of Bray p60), bearing cupmarks with circles and radiating lines.

Oldhamia Petroglyph1
Mixed Media,
8" x 51/2"

Oldhamia Petroglyph2
Mixed Media
8" x 51/2"

Three Mixed Media
These three pieces follow my now established stone pattern background layer with superimposed text words. Taking note of markings on the face of stones from Naylor's Cove I drew lines in ink. This process I call mapping the stones; the inherent marks on the face of the stones indicating their journey through time and space/place. These stones are the end product of the wearing down of the mountains created by rivers of mud flowing "from a great northern Continent of Archaean Rock century after century."