My name is Chrissie Dervin and I am an artist based in Macroom, Co. Cork. My work is detailed, densely layered, and my way of making sense of things which I've lived through. Over time, my practice has shifted from textiles and etching into large-scale pencil and mixed-media drawings. Each piece takes months - sometimes years - to complete. Drawing helps me process both my personal history and the world around me.
I studied Printmaking and graduated with a Fine Art degree in 2005, followed by a Higher Diploma in Art Education.
This piece "Lineage" has followed me for a long time. It began as a screenprint which I created in 2003, using an old photo of my father with his brother. My father died when I was a child, so the image holds deep personal significance. Much later, in 2016, I began painting onto this original print. I worked on it in bursts - sometimes obsessively, sometimes setting it aside for months or even years. I'd spend weeks drawing a section, only to paint over it the next day. That process - of undoing, remaking, and letting go - became part of the piece itself. I last returned to it in 2020 and continued working on it intermittently for at least two more years.
In recent years, my work has been heavily influenced by reading about cadaver dogs - particularly their ability to detect human remains submerged in deep water years after death. It made me reflect on how the dead linger around us - not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically, and generationally.
I often make my work late at night, in stolen time, while caring for my family. The work doesn't always offer answers - but it gives me a place to sit with what's unresolved.