Vessels is a series of paintings developed through the pandemic, a visual thought experiment using the Venn Diagram to establish a self-directed, systematic approach to making paintings that "generates the thing to be done" (Catherine Harty 2021). Exploring the history of vessels, seven basic shapes were chosen from Turkey 1547 AD, Iran 1190 AD, North America 1000 AD, Sudan 3500 BC, Thailand 250 BC, Pakistan 2500 BC, and Syria 1287 AD, for their simplicity of form, multi-time, multi-national and geo-political implications. Reducing them to silhouettes and superimposing them on top of each other to create abstract patterns and the illusion of layers through colour juxtaposition. I used colour separations to determine which colours to use. By using diagrams that interact with the world rather than representing it opens the possibility of a different kind of engagement with painting.

“It is clear that the interplay between these vessels, which represent such a broad expanse of geography, politics, and time, is an examination of multiculturalism; how cultures evolve, influence each other or even remain isolated. As the series evolves, the works become increasingly complicated until the artist sets aside her rigid parameters. Individual colours are still visible but as fragments rather than blocks; colours as federalism ceding from nation states, perhaps.” (Oliver Sears 2022)

Vessels work was exhibited at 'Coalescence', The Lavit Gallery, Cork, 2024 and Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 2022, funded through a Cork County Council, Creative Artists Bursary 2022, and exhibited online at 'The Time of Our Lives' 2020 and 'New & Recent Work' 2021 at www.oliversearsgallery.com

Also see videos Vessels Research 2020 & texts Cantos-Thinking Vessels 2023