Joan Gleeson

As our consciousness expands and  evolves  and  the self imposed boundaries of the psyche dissolve gradually , we realize that the ‘absolute ‘ parameters we recognized, are only one of many perspectives and of many possibilities.

Rectangular plates are cut into a variety of flowing shapes.These cut out shapes are positioned alongside each other and/or superimposed on each other in an array of possible amalgams —suggesting rebirth, growth and expansion.

Joan Gleeson

Tarbh/ Bull

Symbol of primordial, primeval existence, fiercely of the earth, powerful in its purpose, and unmalleable in its being.

The Prize

An eagle has swooped on a treasure, only to find his Prize is falling apart. It disintegrates as he rises, and he discovers it is not what it seemed to be, not substantial, illusory.

Cats

The diversity of cats attributes and expressions are innumerable. Some of these include; fierce independence, playfulness, the intelligent manipulation of humankind, territorial defense mechanisms  and serenity.

Joan Gleeson

Techniques in this representative sample include; water and pigment glazes, powdered chalk pastel combined with acrylic medium, embossed shapes combined with water colour, chine/ collee with water colour images , and touches of gold leaf.

Joan Gleeson

Every living thing is formed within the nexus of an interior secure space, vital for its formation. All molluscs have shell like structures to protect the soft malleable interior from invasion, violation, and over exposure.

It is within the smooth chambers of the uniquely protected encrustacean that a precious pearl is formed, nurtured in its quietude, until it in readiness to emerge.

So it is with the co creative acts of humankind, nurtured from within, in unison with nature and the universe, until uniquely offering their ‘song’ to the universe.

Joan Gleeson

Within the wave images is an attempt to reflect the reality that nothing is absolute or fixed and may not at all be, as it seems. Water, within its fluid manifestation, influenced by planetary movement, weather conditions and light are depicted in a variety of images, as in surge, loop, tunnel and fall.

We are invited to experience the gleeful joy of a drop of water propelled into a massive force of nature, transcending itself and becoming part of a vibrant, forceful expression. Individual drops are subsumed into a surge of powerful movement, of immense force, before separating again within the fall, into individual playful droplets.

And so we live, expand, recede and change, like the tides of the seas and the earth. In their eternal ebb and flow, within the immeasurable and within the innumerable expressions of life.

Joan Gleeson

Sunflowers

A trip to France in autumn sparked an investigation into the bend, and shape of the sunflower weighed top heavy, by its head filled with seeds.

Buddha

‘You and your world are composed of your Thoughts, The wise man controls his Thoughts’ are the words of the great Buddha. When the mind is stilled and freed of its agitations,  constant frantic movement and searching, we come upon a doorway or opening , and slip into a realm of stillness.

Within this realm of stillness, we are allowed a perspective, a glimpse of another reality where creative possibilities emerge, outside the strictures of time. Seemingly insurmountable problems are easily resolved, and we may, even, begin to know ourselves.

We may become one with the Infinite.

Joan Gleeson

Mysterium

This sequence of work revolves around the exploration of mysterious worlds, where air and light intermingle - areas of incandescent , reflected light. These misty worlds of ever changing form are inhabited by variegated insect, moth and mythical beings, with gossamer wings, floating through interweaving cloud. The play of light and form presents an indefinite challenge to the artist in the definition of form in it's elemental movements, and we are presented with brief moments of lucidity, within vast light filled areas of possibility.

The interface between dimensions is the terrain explored visually in the Mini Print Series :

Between Gold and Light

Elemental Moon

Drop Down Gold

All are investigations of straddling dimensions. Embossment on printed paper, overlaid with digital images on Japanese Tissue—sometimes combined with gold leaf—are an attempt to allude to the mystery of joining with an inner essence or Self. Within surrender, openness vulnerability of a kind—under guidance—to Light, the elusive realm of the non-self is touched upon.

Inevitably this adventure leads towards further explorations, always towards the White Gold Light of Life Essence. We have heard of this orally in eg. ‘losing oneself in the music’ or within silence or within a single sound i.e. ‘becoming the sound‘.

Transcendence within Sound, Colour or Light leads to the joining in Oneness to the Vibration of All that Is—‘a going home.’

Joan Gleeson

Early Work

Fun Activities, Imaginings and Objects, became the subject matter  at early stages, as I explored and experimented with print medium and its possibilities.

Hence we have Reflections, Cheers, Gossamer Dance, as well as the more somber  Word or Dark Side of the Moon.

Mini Prints I

Journeying through life, with the intermittent steering lights of insight, direction and vision, prints reflect a steady wave like movement towards openings, apertures and further possibilities.

Joan Gleeson

Prussian Blue

This series of work reflects a time when the more menacing aspects of living present themselves to the imagination, but bring with them the seeds of transformation. Hence the prevailing colour of Prussian blue, broken up intermittently by silver or gold.

Alps

On a trip to the Dolomites in northern Italy, I became fascinated by the sheer solid rock looming upwards towards infinity on a clear day. On a cloudy day this rockface changed utterly in the face of rhythmic movements of vapour, as the mountains were shrouded in mists which divided them into earth bound and heaven bound sections.

Joan Gleeson

Having discovered a youthful photograph of my mother with a few friends, I realized that  at the time the photo had been taken, she was younger than myself. I started to play with the image, transferring it to copper, through exposing the metal to ultra violet light when covered with photosensitive riston.

The realization that she was actually younger than me, dawned as I considered, that yes, she had gone beyond time –into the timeless essence of her being.

I subsequently had fun in transposing her image into interplanetary as well as earthly contexts through the layering of etched plates with chine collee, while always allowing space for the infinity of possibilities in between.

Combining the Chinese character ‘To Love’ with the imagery, along with including a circle or square in gold leaf, conveyed to me an act of circular completion.

Therefore the joyous romping of her being in other dimensions could be part of my sleep experience, while the activity of my hands and being could allow her a direct link with the earth plane.

The parameters of time and timelessness, life and deathlessness, become part of the fun exploration of the limitlessness of our beings in existence, within whatever dimension we may wish to experience.

Joan Gleeson

The ephemeral nature of existence on the earth plane, and the subtle interactions between this and other spheres is the theme being investigated in this body of work.

Symbols of feather, or butterfly wing , briefly upheld by hand and mind, are used to convey the transitory nature of a living essence, which must of its nature be continually released into further dimensions, so glory can be apprehended within and beyond time.

Joan Gleeson

Fisherman's Ropes

In this series of work, ropes seen on Howth pier, are used as symbols of sturdiness and resilience, with the capacity to draw people to safety, to berth boats, and trawlers to harbor, to draw in fishing nets etc.

Rope images are contrasted with transient ,water immersed entities, submerged in the depths of another element, reflecting their own glory, living a largely unseen existence, completely at home in their own environment, while fulfilling the potential of their beings— portugese man-o-war or jellyfish.

These elemental translucent creatures reflect the delicacy and resilience of nature and nurture interactions, fluid in their mollusk movement and in contrast with the solid texture of the rope.

Print techniques include etching on copper and aluminum, combined with glycee overlay on Japanese tissue.

Joan Gleeson

The beach and extended coastline provide ever renewing source material of inspiration and investigation.

The ever changing coastal activity of wind and tidal motion, and the impact of such activity on sand and dune provides the impetus for this body of work.

The work investigates shale delineated water lines, bird imprints, as well as insect and worm trails.

All species , as well as man, contribute their distinctive marks on the earth surface, while flocks of birds move in unison, within lightening wave motion, over the surface of the water,

before soaring into the sunlit heights above.

LEGEND HAS IT THAT ATLANTIS WAS SUBMERGED UNDERWATER AFTER A CATACLYSMIC EVENT.

ONE THEORY SUGGESTS THAT THE MORE ENLIGHTENED OF THE INHABITANTS TRAVELLED TO OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD,BEFORE THE FINAL CATASTROPHE IN AIRBORNE VEHICLES POWERED BY CRYSTALS WITH ENTRAPPED LIGHT.

THE ACCUMULATED KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM OF THESE ENLIGHTENED ONES WAS NOT ENTIRELY LOST TO MANKIND AND IT IS BELIEVED THAT A NUMBER OF OUR MYSTERIOUS AND SPECTACULAR ANCIENT SITES AS IN THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS,THE PYRAMIDS OF THE AMERICAS, MESOPOTAMIA, OR PERSIA WITH THEIR MYSTERIES STILL UNFOLDING, WERE BROUGHT INTO BEING OR FRUITION THROUGH THE INHERENT WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE OR ‘WHISPERINGS’ OF THESE PEOPLE.

MY IMAGININGS INCLUDED A MORE ELUSIVE TRANSMISSION OF WISDOM THROUGH SOUND OR SOUNDINGS AS IN VIBRATIONS CONDUCTED THROUGH WATER COMING FROM THE DEPTHS

OF THE OCEAN ON TOWARDS AIRBORNE SOUNDS AS IN ‘MUSIC OF THE SPHERES’ SOUND RESONATING WITH THE VIBRATION OF LIGHT , AIR AND FINALLY MATTER.

THIS CREATED A CALLING INTO MEMORY THE RESIDUAL KNOWING OF WHAT COULD BE.

WITHIN ANCIENT WISDOM THE ATOMS OF SOUND , WERE EQUIVALENT TO THE ATOMS OF COLOUR , LIGHT, OR MATTER—IN ESSENCE VIBRATIONS.

IT WAS THEREFORE A NATURAL EXPERIMENT TO ‘SOUND MATTER’ INTO BEING.

EINSTEIN HAS IN OUR TIME HAS MATHEMATICALLY PROVEN THIS TO BE TRUE.

JOAN GLEESON.

Experiments included a variety of techniques.  

These included ;

Combining embossed effect with line etch,

Acquiring a serrated edge on metal through prolonged immersion in acid,

Printing on japanese or lens tissue,

Roll up on string, plate or paper,

Photo etch with riston

Experiments with carborundum,

Experiments with double plate overlay,

Experiments with textured plates using fabrics and other materials on soft ground.

This body of work attempts to investigate the depiction of realms of experience within any normal existence, as of reverie, dream, meditative and so called reality.

Through the undulating rhythms of line, shape, colour and texture overlaying and underlaying eachother in rhythmic, tonal harmony, an attempt is made to convey the ever changing, motion filled patterns of existence.

Thus a passage from the inner core of silent essence, through the mysterious exploration of time and non time finds expression in shape, motion, form, sound or language reflecting our experience of what it is to live, and to be.

A variety of life's manifestations as in feather, bird, shell, air wave motion, intermingling, interacting and influencing each other, until many probabilities are explored within the endless possibilities of action and interaction.

The relationship of forms to each other, as in overlaying pattern or colour combined with the tactility of embossed paper suggesting linear form, are an inherent aspect of the exploration of harmonies with the interactive nature of existence, where the interchangeable is the norm.

Print in it's versatility, allows for the combination of the tactile, the line, the pattern, the silhouette, through physically layering a variety of elements. The medium reflects the inner recognition of the oneness of earth and ether in harmonious motion.

Joan Gleeson