My primary means of expression are colour and the immediacy that painting gives. While my ink drawings are a little more disciplined, when painting I smear on the paint, with my old and used brushes which have followed me for years or with my hands, like a child playing with mud. I like the traditional rectangle of the canvas or paper, my aim is to create resonant spaces within that limited surface. I am concerned with the horizontal and the vertical and with my relationship to the earth as a woman and mother. Also with memory, preserving time and entering into its flow in the process. The narration of my work is not linear, but rather buds off towards the past and sideways. I work in an intuitive manner in which the whole body takes part, with the original idea or impulse serving as a starting point. I use oils and sometimes acrylics and printing inks on hand-stretched canvas or wood. The paintings often start with pieces of cloth - my granny's dress, my partner's old shirt, parts of my own prints, my childrens' drawings, a torn-up letter. Bits of Irish newspapers from the eighties, a stack of which I found in a shed in the first house we lived in, partly eaten away by time and humidity. For me, those objects are magical and hold time in them like vessels. I let the paintings develop as they will. Recently I have started to give more attention to the paint's materiality and prefer to leave the space more open, to let the colour have its full impact.

While the paintings are a reaction to emotional pressure, the drawings require a different, collected state of mind. I chose this very simple and meditative net because of the fullness of the experience I want to convey. I attach the paper to wood with gum arabic tape, which gives unlimited possibilities of using water. I like to make little signs and gestures before starting the net, often using wax resist - this only comes in view with the appearance of the lines. I also puddle water on the paper and draw the lines as it dries, involving time directly in the process.