Ireland: Land/Air/Sea

The New York Irish Center, Long Island City August 2016

Self Curated by Cristina Ferrigno & Spencer Moore (7 Line Collective)

Ireland: Land/Air/Sea is a contemporary art exhibition featuring Queens based art group, 7 Line Collective. Artists Cristina Ferrigno and Spencer Moore will exhibit their landscape photography taken throughout Ireland last year.

Inspired by ancient Celtic art and legend, Cristina Ferrigno focuses on small details, capturing many varied textures and patterns throughout the natural world.

When visiting the places of her ancestry, Spencer Moore reflects on the time and distance between Western Ireland and New York, where her great-grandfather immigrated from around the turn of the last century.

Both artists consider time and place while capturing ephemeral moments in the landscape. Momentary fluctuations in the sky or a breeze in the grass are juxtaposed against the inherent elements of the land itself.

Artist Statement

Ireland: Textures

One thing that really stands out about Ireland to a native New Yorker is the dramatic scenery. I was inspired by the color palette and textures that are inherent in the natural landscape. As an Art History enthusiast, I was excited to see The Book of Kells at Trinity College and the Stone-Age site at Newgrange. Here, I observed intricate and ancient motifs inspired by nature. I saw similar patterns mirrored in the countryside, locations like Giant’s Causeway and Inishbofin. In these places, stories of giants, pirates and revolutionaries merge with the land. This series focuses on places with unique oral and cultural histories that blend fact and fiction.

I contemplated Time while photographing Ireland’s bleak and beautiful coastline. How have the shore and the rocky cliffs changed over the eons? What features has natural erosion added or taken away-- what has stayed the same? I wanted to capture the beautiful and sometimes overlooked details of Nature in Ireland.

Cristina Ferrigno, 2016