Murrough O'Donovan

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/arte-povera

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Welcome to the website of artist Vivienne Roche, based in Ireland.

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Between Two Bookends: Ecology and the Work of Mark Dion | | Flash Art

The environmental catastrophe that is currently unfolding before our eyes has a single culprit at its source — the human being. Of course, t

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Mark Dion — Art21

Art21 is a celebrated global leader in presenting thought-provoking and sophisticated content about contemporary art, and the go-to place to

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‘You can’t unsee this’: Richard Mosse’s all-consuming plea to save the Amazon

Across a 20-metre panoramic screen in ultra-high resolution, visitors bear witness to environmental degradation – in a piece that overwhelms

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Murrough O’Donovan – Artist Statement

 

Murrough O’Donovan is working with pen, pencil and ink drawing. In his drawings he is using trees he has a personal connection to, to represent the world taking inspiration from Yggdrasil of Norse mythology and drawing representations of urbanisation snaking up them like a parasitic plant referencing urban sprawl and the destruction of the wild both around his home in West Cork and globally.

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Sections of the branches from Overgrown

I really liked these photos which are just zoomed in on sections of my drawing Overgrown. They remind me of japanese prints.

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Overgrown

The second large drawing I made this semester was Overgrown again taking a tree from the land around my family's land this one on the corner of our drive. I talk about this tree and the other trees I draw in my pos Old Friends and Family: The trees of my art.

On this drawing I wanted to continue with the idea of urbanisation as a parasitic plant and i chose this tree partly because it was covered in some really beatiful ferns and moss which are still parasitic.

Instead of the side of the building i decide to do the map of a city, originally i was just going to do a 2D one from a birdseye view like u get on a map but while making the drawing I decided to make it 3D at the edges like the buildings are following the curvature off the tree. I really liked this look and i think it added to the idea of urban sprawl covering the world, the message of which i think is more obvious in this drawing with the city map and lack of any other objects in the drawing.

The branches of this drawing are really intricate and i think that came out really well with the gold.

Overall i really like this drawing but i did end up drawing the tree too small for the page and so I needed to fill up the top parto f the stage, i decided to go with something quite abstract as i didn't really want another object taking focus from the tree. I went with a circle and a surrounding glow of flame like texture using a different type of gold paint to the main background. I think it turned out pretty well although i still at time with cutting out the tree from the page with just the pen part of the gold background.

I really like this stage in the drawing when it was just the tree and the gold pen outline, it looked like the tree had gold leaves.

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Yggdrasil Overgrown

The first large drawing I made this semester Yggdrasil Overgrown is a mixture of an alice in wonderland style magical world and a drawing about how urbanisation is taking over nature.

The tree is a tree from the farm at home. It sits in the middle of a field and that my Dad rents out to another farmer, my Dad often has to argue with the farmer to not cut the tree down. I'd already done a sketch with the tree overgrow bricks and wires but nowhere near the detail or comp;exity.

In this piece i went for a New York high rise style with the windows and fire escapes that at times come out past the trunk. I drew the brick areas to cover the trunk in the way ivy, moss or some other parasitic plant might cover a tree. Trying to visually connect the idea of urbanisation covering the planet to a parasitic plant covering a tree.

I also added the huge snake wrapped around the trunk attacking a man blowing a horn near the top. With the pine needle clumps with a sort of fluffy cloudlike quality and the strange tree covered in bricks I think it all creates quite an intriguing fantasy scene which i always used to love to draw as a kid so it's a nice call back to why how i started really enjoing art too.

The tree in the drawing also represents Yggdrasil the world tree from Norse mythology so the bricks which are urban are covering the natural world. The man is Heimdall blowing the Gjallahorn to call the gods to Ragnarok, the battle that ends the world and the snake is Jormungandr the world snake, so i see it as the destructive side of nature destroying mankind after mankind has destroyed the natural world.

Some other thoughts on the drawing: it's got quite a strong japanese print style to it which wasnt necessarily intentional but that's definitely something that has influenced me a lot since childhood as my Grandfather used to collect Japanese prints.

Also i'm not entirely sire about having a human figure in the drawing, my turos said it mad ethe scale of the drawing a bit too finite as without the figure there was more of a question about how big everything else was. But still overall I'm really happy with this piece.

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The Somme Oak

My third large drawing this semester The Somme Oak, i explained the backstory behind this tree and why it means so much to me in an ealier post about the trees i draw but just to give a very quick recap it's a tree in my family homes garden that has been grown from an acorn my great grandfather brougth back from the battle of the somme in the first world war.

It didn't feel right to do another version of what I'd done previously with the tree being covered in buildings or bricks or some other man made thing, i cosidered bullets or a battle field map but i didn't like any of those ideas. So I went for just depicting the tree using gold this time to represent blood where the tree has been injured on the trunk or it's branches, these injuries were caused by lightning strikes and strong winds. But I like to think it's like a wounded soldier like my Great grandfather who was injured at the battle of the somme where he got the acorn, but also wounded like our planets eco system but the golden buds on all the little branches are meant to represent hope for the future, that despite the damage the tree can still grow, the soldier can still heal, the natural world can be helped back to a healthier place.

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Ragnarok - Norse Mythology for Smart People

Ragnarok is the cataclysmic destruction of the cosmos and everything in it – even the gods. When Norse mythology is considered as a chronolo

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Yggdrasil: The Sacred Ash Tree of Norse Mythology

Various visions of Yggdrasil, the sacred World Tree, watered by the Well of Urðr, whose roots connect to the nine worlds of Norse mythology.

In my drawings of trees that are being overgrows with urban things the trees are representative of the world like Yggdrasil, and in my first large gold drawing Yggdrasil Overgrown I also added Heimdall from Norse mythology blowing the gjallahorn which he does to start Ragnarok, the mythical battle that ends the world in norse mytholgy. The snake is Jormungandr the world serpent who fights the gods in Ragnarok, for me in the drawing it's representative of the destructive side of nature destroying the human race as we destroy the natural world.

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Urban sprawl continues at the cost of nature in Europe

Land take and the sealing of soil with asphalt, concrete or buildings increased in Europe’s urban areas from 2012 to 2018, according to a Eu

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Among the Trees: Major artworks that reimagine our relationship with trees and forests

Major artworks that reimagine our relationship with trees and forests.

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Trees in art | Apollo Magazine

At the Fondation Cartier and soon at the Hayward Gallery, art really does grow on trees, writes Paul Bonaventura