Motion Marks

Motion Marks is a multi disciplinary public art project for An Tain Art Centre’s 2021 Off Site programme.

Drawing live from a moving dancing figure leaves no time to plan the marks being made, it forces a direct eye-to-hand connection and the brain has no time to interfere.

I’ve been holding live dance drawing sessions with dancer, actor and choreographer Fiona Keenan O’Brien for several years. For this project I’ve painted Fiona’s dancing figure onto large flags while she is improvising movement live.

Conceptually, the project relates to themes of restriction, adaptation and freedom, turning limitations into creative scaffold, the shifting boundaries of public and private in relation to the physical body, negotiating balance between safety and freedom, the symbolism and emotive properties of flags, the movement and reactivity, and site specific ideas around territory and marginal spaces and borders – physical, mental and cultural.

26 flags in total were installed at 3 locations in Dundalk, including the top of the Town Hall on Crowe St. Musician Zoë Conway composed a soundtrack ‘Brush Strokes on Canvas’, available to listen to online at the flag locations by scanning a QR code.

Motion Marks studies are now available for sale here