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KARI CAHILL

Site-Responsive Visual Artist
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BKK 222

October 8, 2022

Our first conversations about art revolved around earth pigment. I asked Robert to sent ochre from Australia to Ireland in exchange for a painting. He collected the ochre and discussions continued about methods of processing the colour, separation, sieving and levigation. 

Throughout the exchange conversations about art were always close at hand. Opinions on painting practice, writing styles, books, music, film, photography and ceramics were swapped regularly. Topics of light, colour, negative space, craft and process were touched on again and again and it became evident that our tastes aligned in so many ways when it came to our creativity. 

When the world opened up again after covid we wanted to explore the deep connection we had formed and investigate our practices in an in person collaboration. We chose Thailand as the meeting place and BKK222 was the product of our time together.  The following essay was written by myself and Robert as a way of reflecting on the process that led to BKK222.

BKK 222 - Balcony Images - 2022 - The Earth Spun Light2.jpg
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BKK- Bangkok

The city was in a lull post lockdown. Like most places on earth it was recovering from its own brand of trauma after the great upheaval to business-as-usual. There were very few tourists and domestic life seemed to be sprawling once again. The April air was humid and locals tucked into the shade beneath parasols and tarps. Peeling sunshine burned through the polluted fumes that rose from the traffic. Everyone wore masks inside and out. It was a busy hub of noise and haste but we weaved through it easily. 

A cascade of open storefronts fell full across the paving. Businesses devoted to fruit or worship alongside displays of jewellery, gemstone, and convenience. Around the corner, the welding shop and the shop that sells locks. Lunchtime was a flowing bustle of brown limbs in the noonday heat. Along footpaths and side streets smoking coals sat in streetside stalls. The smell of cooking meat and sewage united in the air. 

We two creative kin came to Thailand to explore the spark that lit between us when we spoke at length of art. Through the Bangkok concrete maze we combed the crowds in hope to catch a burst of light. A hunt amongst the sounds and shapes of glass and steel. A refracted flash absorbed into the darkness two blocks down. Take a right turn. Take a left. Take a break. Take photographs. 

For now we play it safe and take it slow. Stick a straw into a coconut, eat mango sticky rice at the boat ramp with the catfish and the pigeons. Sit here a while and listen in to evening chat and river water. 

At nightfall, in our quiet room above the streets, we tried to make sense of the search so far. Sketches, notes, screenshots, scans. Artists’ bags flung open, sprawled across the space. We prepared canvas and paper in the dark with diluted metal salts. Cyanotype was the link between our practices. A charged yellow dye ready for tomorrow’s ultraviolet light.

Each day we explored on foot, took photos and made paintings. Down to the temple on the river for a look. The sun’s rays burned through the clouds and onto our papers. We watched them turn from yellow, to teal, to Prussian blue. We bowed in thanks. A twisting plume of incense smoke took the breeze and made a path that led downstream. We flagged a boat and traced the maps that stretched along the water. We crept along canals past stilted dwellings that sagged and leaned against tilted boards, held upright for now.

Back on land we talked of all we’d seen. Bangkok had been very good to us. Its shapes, lines and colour became a framework for our exploration of light. We collected all we had so far and took it on a northbound flight to the walled city beneath the mountains in the province of Chiang Mai. 

CNX - CHIANG MAI

Upon arrival the air was wet and cool but the days soon turned to sweltering noons, torrential evening downpours and hot sticky nights. An ease enveloped the journey here. The pace and haste of Bangkok made way for lazy meanders through the inner side streets and half streets of the walled city. We had gathered an essence of the passion and spark to be found by two who travelled so far to explore the potential of connection. We hoped now to bring that spark into the physical for the outside world to see. 

A first floor concrete room was both studio and home. At night we sat cross legged on the porch and drank Sang Som, Shweppes and Singa. With full mouths and minds, we crushed pigment and charcoal, brushed them to page and bled them together. By day the toolbox was assembled. Paper, notebooks, maps and plans piled up on floors and tables. Light sensitive chemicals: potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate, panes of glass and photo negatives. Mock-up prints were taped to walls. Endless trials were held as we tuned ourselves to the sun, exposing paintings and photographs when the UV was at its strongest. There on the steps we etched from the sky clear lines and soft curves in deep blue hues.

We took slips of inspiration and the specks of light from the back of the mind, and through the exploration of the space between us formed them into something more defined to the outsider. Now, with stacks and reams of drafts and prints we packed our bags and left the place. Southbound on another plane to an island in the Andaman Sea. Ko Lanta. 

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KBV - Koh Lanta

 The night we arrived at our villa on the hill we retired to the balcony looking due west over the water and the sky. As we basked in the heat a pulsing insect song curled around us like a rattle. In the distance an evening call to prayer loomed through the dusk and droned amongst the chorus surrounding us as the last rays fell from the sky. On the horizon a line of dark cloud fizzed with lightning and held the sunset to the sea. We dozed and drank and gave our thanks. The earth spun dark another day.

We spent our last week together on the grass in front of our villa exposing cyanotypes in the blistering heat. In the afternoons we explored the island on our Honda Wave. We took the road out to Old Town, stopping on the roadside to collect pink earth pigment, then back to the shoreline just in time to catch the sun before it disappeared. We swam in warm saltwater at sunset in the mandarin glow, laughing out loud at our good fortune. 

At night we huddled in the cool, tiled room and bound together all we had made. We selected images to sit side by side, pairing photographs and paintings, curating each individual combination for all twenty copies. We neither of us saw it coming, the production line of such a kind, for it was not built but grown, simply, joyfully, through flow in art and love. Our physical portrayal of the light encountered when you go towards what feels right and good. 

For us, BKK 222 is a representation of the leap we took in order to be together, to have conversations in person rather than across time zones, to risk our comfort for something unknown. It’s a symbol of what we can achieve creatively and the collaboration to come. It’s a symbol of our light.

In Artist Residency, Collaboration&Partnership, New Work, The Earth Spun Light Tags cyanotype, cyanograph, cyanotypeprocess, sustainabledarkroom, sustainablephotography, cyanotypephotography, architecturalphotography, cyanotypepainting, sustainablepainting, sustainablepractice, collaboration, collaborativeproject, architectureinart, irishartist, photographyzine, diyzine, architecturezine, architectureinphotography, photographyandpainting, paintingandphotography, landscapephotography, landscapeart, experimentalart, artbook, photographybook, artzine, theearthspunlight, theearthspunlightbook, karicahill, robertdoherty
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Cyanotype Experiments

March 10, 2022

The past year I have been working on two commissions which, over time, began to explore a similar process - using UV to oxidise cyanotype chemicals. While the two commissions had very different starting and end points they both allowed me to delve into the varied outcomes that result from tinkering with exposure times, weather conditions and surface. Below are some images and descriptions that explain the process.

Process Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist12.jpg
Process Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist7.jpeg

Cyanotype is a process whereby a chemical mixture is oxidised by UV light to produce a deep blue colour. Literally painted by the sunlight.

Ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide are mixed together (in the dark away from UV light) to make a yellow liquid. This is painted onto paper and left to dry and then stored in the dark. 

When exposed to UV light (sunlight) the mix undergoes an oxidisation process and turns from yellow to green to blue. After exposure the remaining mix is washed off leaving behind a beautiful prussian blue. Various shades of blue can be achieved by tweaking exposure times. Water is added at various moments which causes interesting colouration patterns and lends itself beautifully to my practice.

Process Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist8.jpeg
Process Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist3.jpeg

The cyanotype mixture contains iron salts which are washed off with the addition of water, however, while they remain on the page they can be mixed with copper ink, which reacts by turning from bright turquoise into a deep rust colour. Alternatively, the copper can be added after the cyanotype has been washed and in this case the copper oxide ink dries in it’s own crystallisation patterns across the page. 

Copper ink is an exercise in alchemy. I began by submerging copper scraps in vinegar and iodized salt for two months, stirring the ink daily to allow air and vinegar to oxidise the copper, producing a deep turquoise colour. The colour deepens over time as more of the copper is eaten away through the oxidisation process. 

The ink is separated into two layers, a top dark blue transparent layer, and a heavier milky blue layer that sinks to the bottom. When mixed they produce a beautiful translucent ink that seems to bend and move with the light. 

Process Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist1.jpeg
Process Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist2.jpeg

There is a keen sense of alchemy occurring on the surface of these works. While each used similar same colours, I have approached the canvas, and the application of colour quite differently in both. In Opalescence, I wanted the hues to blend in a gentle way. The commission called for the use of botanical inks foraged from a farm in Cork; a pallet of neutral tones was created from bluebell, nettle, wild sage and buttercup. I dripped, poured and blushed the inks onto the unprimed canvas allowing the hues to soak and blend across the surface. As the colours seep into the textile they settled into their own rhythm, as they do in nature. 

Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist4.jpeg
Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist1.jpeg
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Kari Cahill - Cyanptype Process 2022 - irish Artist8.jpg

In Elemental Energy I wanted to create stronger contrasts between areas.  I layered colour atop colour, allowing chemical reactions between copper oxides and cyanotype minerals to occur on the surface of the work. There is intense contrast between shapes and textures which draws the eyes across the canvas settling on each distinct area. I tweaked ph levels using basic and acidic materials, which stretched the colours across the spectrum, and in some cases resulted in new colours emerging. 

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Opalesence - 2022 - Cyanotype (cobalt), Cork Inks - Nettle, Bluebell, soda on canvas - 180 x 120cm - Kari Cahill - .jpeg
In Available Work, Comissions, New Work, Bio Colour
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Silk And Subterranea - Walnut, Oak Gall, Iron, Ash, Charred Oak, Rusty Dust - 41.5 x 42.5 - Detail.jpg

Arboreal Bind - New Works

May 30, 2020

For this series I focussed my colour pallet on hues and tones created primarily from Oak. As the pieces developed I added Walnut bio colour for it’s deep brown shade, which set off the lighter golden hues of the Oak Gall Ink.

I used oak in various forms; charred bark which resulted in charcoal black as, well as the ash from an oak fire which gave me pale cream chalk. The mid-tones were created using oak gall ink. Each ingredient had fulfilled it’s environmental role, discarded and burnt. Through the process of colour making I was able to prolong the life-span of these arboreal materials.

I employed the use of broad brush strokes that appear to continue past the parameter of the page. The colours pooled on the surface of the paper, melding and infusing together, as if alive. As the paint dried, this blending of organic matter was captured.

Of Wind Blown Husks Of Wind Blown Husks
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Of Wind Blown Husks
€380.00
Fissure Glitter
Sold Out
Fissure Glitter
€190.00

Oak galls ink is one of my favourte to make - the galls are formed when a wasp lays its eggs on the branch of an oak sapling. The tree responds to the wasp larvae by creating a protective orb or “gall” around the wasp babies. Eventually, the wasp bores a tiny, perfectly circular, tunnel out of the gall and flies off, leaving its gall haven behind. I collect the galls from the low lying branches of young oak trees. (If you ever come across galls in abundance please let me know)

I crush and soak the galls for between 3 weeks and a year depending on how rich I would like the colour. After straining the liquid, I add FeS04 (Liquid Iron) which reacts with the tannic acid to turn the ink from golden brown to black/green brown. After brushing the ink on the page the ink deepens through oxidization, further appearing as a rich, indelible black.

Oak Gall is the quintessential calligrapher’s ink and has been used since the middle ages. the Book of Kells contains oak gall ink, and until recent technology took over, oak gall was the official registrar’s ink for signing legal documents.  

oak gall.jpeg
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Silk & Subterranea Silk & Subterranea
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Silk & Subterranea
€380.00

The full series can be viewed through my online store. If you have any questions please get in touch.
Tabhair Aire
Kari x


In Available Work, Bio Colour, New Work Tags natural pigments, landscape foraging, foraging for colour, earth pigments, site responsive artist, irish artist, contemporary irish artist, emerging artist, bio colour, environmental art, environmental artist, ecoart
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Glaucous Waves on the Inside. Acrylic and spray on hand-stretched canvas. 61x92cm.

Glaucous Waves on the Inside. Acrylic and spray on hand-stretched canvas. 61x92cm.

Waiting At The Weather Window

March 31, 2020

Nestled in behind Nano Nagle Place off Douglas Street in Cork there is a beautiful space called Good Day Deli.

I say space, and not cafe, because what the owners Claire and Mak, have done with this spot reaches far beyond serving food. Yes, they create absolutely delicious dishes and they have queues around the corner most weekends, but that’s not where their project ends. They have created a really wholesome mission around their food business, keeping sustainability to the fore of their decision making. They encourage community building through a series of talks and their podcast. Tributaries is a collaboration with Ray Foley and invited practitioners, academics and advocates discuss the most pressing environmental issues we face. Recent talks have focussed on ‘The reintroduction of wolves in Ireland’ and ‘Waterways’. Please Wait To Be Seated is a sustainability podcast that discusses GDD’s views on sustainability with their staff, suppliers and guests. Work by local artists and makers are sold on the shop floor furthering their emphasis on ‘local’.

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When Claire invited me to show work in the Good Day Deli, I immediately knew it would work out well. To top off everything Good Day Deli stands for, they are also located in a peculiarly un-irish setting; a contemporary container style, glass-clad structure surrounded by a herb garden with high walls and colourful shrubs. The space isn’t quite inside, and isn’t quite outside, which I love.

View fullsize Finding Flints In The Ocean.
Finding Flints In The Ocean.
View fullsize Land Bias.
Land Bias.

The pieces I created for the space needed to stand up to it; they are big and bold. The colours reflect the coming of spring, and the emerging of colour; both which are mirrored in the landscape surrounding the space.

I poured liquid pigment onto hand-stretched canvas, pooling and dragging the colour across the surface of the painting. By building layers on top of layers the pieces embody the curves and currents of moving water. The work ‘Congress of Substances’ hints to the abundance of colour and texture found in the natural landscape by deconstructing the marks I use to create paintings. The title of the largest piece ‘Im Waiting At The Weather Window’ evokes a feeling of anticipation for the season to come.

Congress of Substances.
Congress of Substances.
I'm Waiting At The Weather Window
I'm Waiting At The Weather Window

Unfortunately, the works were on the wall a mere week before the cafe closed, in keeping with COVID 19 restrictions. We’re in a moment where it feels like the world is standing still. I am grateful to the solidarity shown by the community of Ireland towards small businesses and the creative community. No doubt Good Day Deli will open it’s doors again once the pandemic is over, and I can’t wait to see what plans Claire and Mak have been hatching!

If you would like further information on any of these works please head to my shop, or get in touch via email.

In New Work, Exhibition, Collaboration&Partnership
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Spectrum

Spectrum Series

July 26, 2019

Delicious strokes of colour flat against a textured background. There is something delicious about the way the colour fuses together. Being summertime the light hits the land straight in, striking light through the trees and creating dense shadows. Bright sparky colours bounce through the vistas.

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In Sligo, I was given a chance to create a series of works on canvas. I approached this as an exercise in exploring a technique. I wanted to fully engage in the process of applying three distinct layers in various colour combinations. The works are made up of three components; the white texture background, followed by the messy spirited splash, and finally the slow strong gradient stroke. The slow steady application of the stoke, after the uninhibited gestural splash forces me to shift my thinking, and my hand-eye co-ordination. Each component is intuitive - moving between complete abandon and frenzied focus.

Spectrum. Green. Lime/Fuschia

Spectrum. Green. Lime/Fuschia

Sure it’s that time of year again when days roll together and time seems to flit past in an instant. The hours spent in deep concentration working on these pieces will mark the presence of being in Sligo at this moment.

All the works are available for purchase - see my Instagram & Artwork Archive for more deeeeets.

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In New Work Tags spectrum series, kari cahill, irish artist, west coast artist, Ink makingAcrylic paint, art acrylic paint, Acrylic paint, young artist, emerging artist
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