Position One
2023
Textile collage. 60cm x 90cm
Rootin' Tootin' Hirsootin' is the first in a series of textile collages. These collages are made by taking images of metamorphosis in nature from Irish folktales in the National Folklore Collection. They are then re-assembled and queered into new and absurd scenes. In an earlier Irish world, the ontological and conceptual boundaries that separate us from nature and other entities weren't so binary and fixed, but porous and blurred.
This series of work aims to reflect this and offers a silly invitation to imagine new ways of interacting and existing with care within the larger matrix of nature and the earth. Rootin' Tootin' Hirsootin' takes an Irish folk cure for baldness- maiden hair (Schools Collection, Volume 96, page 631) and then brings us into an imagined future where bald admirers lust, an incredibly hairy gardener plants, tends and harvests, and writhing roots bloom and multiply at alarming speed!!
Niamh Coffey is a visual artist working through drawing, print and textiles to create new narratives, myths and hyperboles. Their work takes the form of intricate and absurd collages. They play with ideas from queer ecology and Irish folklore to ideas around gender and our relationship to nature and other beings. Niamh graduated from NCAD in 2016 with an honours degree in Sculpture and Expanded Practices and a highly commended thesis. Exhibitions in which their work has featured include: The Stars are in the Earth at A4 Sounds; Halftone at the Library Project and Awkward Interjection at Pallas Project/Studios.
In November, they were selected to take part in peripheriesPOST, an experimental art school and mentorship programme that will culminate in a group exhibition in August 2023. In 2022 they received an Agility Award from the Arts Council.
