Time is an elemental force, indefinite, intangible, and in constant motion. Though it shapes all matter, from the geological to the emotional, our attempts to grasp its scale are inevitably limited by the brevity of human life. This exhibition presents a cross-section of my ongoing investigation into geologic deep time and human biologic time, tracing the points at which these temporalities intersect and diverge.
My recent work engages with the physicality of time through stone, both a material and a cultural artefact, at once enduring and mutable. By constructing moments that compress immense geologic spans alongside fleeting instants, I position the physical world as a vast record, storing memory, erosion, pressure and change. The use of natural and manufactured materials such as limestone, sandstone, jesmonite, concrete and paper set conversations about how time is perceived beyond the human body. These materials become carriers of information, transforming from natural objects into cultural artefacts, repositories of both past and present.
Learning the ancient discipline of stone carving has deepened my relationship with the Leitrim landscape whose exposed bedrock and dramatic valleys hold stories of deep geological processes. Each strike of the chisel creates a dual record, instinctual and scientific. In contrast, the mould-making and casting processes employed in the (Core) and (Fossil) series reveal the tension between natural formation and human intervention. The Cores present imagined strata accumulated over millions of years, inviting the viewer to confront a temporal scale far beyond our own. The (Fossils) capture moments from eras predating humanity entirely, suggesting worlds that existed and may one day exist again without us.
My (Panel / Cave work) references some of the earliest human inscriptions in the landscape. Echoing the ring forts and rock-art panels of Ireland, I have embossed circles and cup-and-ring motifs into paper, one of the most fragile materials, pairing ancient forms with contemporary vulnerability.
In my (Timeline) work, discarded wristwatches once intimate markers of personal time become frozen moments of obsolescence. Through crystallisation, these objects are offered to the geological record, their human histories preserved within an imagined future strata.
My practice is informed by the study of Irish petroglyphs, enigmatic markers that act as conduits to narrative fragments buried within the land as well as the sciences of gemmology and geology, whose factual rigour contrasts with the mysteries of material history. Rooted in materiality and symbology, my work explores the growth structures, transformations and life cycles of stone alongside humanity’s enduring impulse to inscribe meaning upon the Earth. By examining the origins, properties, and cultural trajectories of the materials we live among, I am establishing a dialogue between ancient systems of knowledge and contemporary concerns with time, matter, and memory.
Curated by Sean O'Reilly.
Bernie Colhoun
Sligo-based multidisciplinary artist, Bernie Colhoun, creates abstract artworks, often geometric and minimalist in nature. Initially inspired by
mineralogy and its unseen processes during her time working in the jewellery trade, in the years since she has pursued ideas surrounding geologic time and our human interaction with it, she is currently studying Gemmology at the University of Galway alongside her art practice.
Colhoun is a fine art graduate from Crawford College of Art & Design, she was a founding member of ‘Sample Studios’ in Cork City and is now a member of The NCF Artist Collective in Mayo. She has been awarded art residencies at Pulled Print Studios and Dovecote Studio in Sligo and more recently at DSEF The German Gem Lab in Idar Oberstein, Germany. She was selected as an Irish participant in the ‘Staring at the Sea - land Art Symposium’ and has been awarded an Irish Arts Council Agility Award, Creative Ireland Award and Culture Moves Europe Award. Colhoun is also engaged with community arts, facilitating print workshops for events such as the Bealtaine and St Bríd Festivals in Sligo and social enterprises such as Pocket Forests and West Sligo Family Resource Centre. Colhoun has exhibited nationally and internationally, taking part in multiple group and solo exhibitions.