I would describe myself as a painter, sometimes using mied media, of people in the Irish, particularly, Belfast , landscape
Lately I've become interested in our Bogs.
Attracted to and excited by the images of "The Bog Bodies", discovered by P.V.Glob, the Danish archeologist in 1964.
I triad to represent these Iron Age bodies in paint but that didn't work for me..
Glob described some of the bodies having skin as dark as brown leather with hair light brown or golden red in colour.
I used an old leather jacket and the lining to cut out pieces and sew them onto black fabric.
Making images in this way was a totally new experience for me. It wasn't easy but it was exciting.
I made 10 or 12 bodies.
These are the two best known: Tolland man and Grauballe man.
Seamus Heaney has written poems about them.
Looking at my images I hope you can see the way I've represented the disturbance of the bog with threads.I've gien each body their own space in the bog.
I wasn't happy until I saw them so beautifully framed by Kerlin Framing.
I hope to look more into the bog in the future.
Catherine McWilliams