ART Exhibition on cilliní running in Westport

QUIET CONTEMPLATION?A woman looking at one of Sheena Graham George’s works at The Custom House Gallery.?Pic: Conor McKeown

Exhibition on cilliní running in Westport


A new exhibition ‘Daisies – (Vale of Tears)’ by artist Sheena Graham George, is running at  the Custom House Studios gallery, The Quay, Westport, until June 29. It forms part of a larger, ongoing project in which the artist focuses on cillíní, sites of unbaptised infants’ burial grounds.
Sheena Graham George, who hails from the Orkney Islands in Scotland, first started to research cillíní in Achill and other locations in Co Mayo and along the west coast in 2009 after she was awarded a Heinrich Böll residency on Achill Island.
“In 2012, during my residency with the Custom House Studios, a member of the local community in Westport talked about a nearby island used as a cillín. They described it as a very beautiful and special place especially in the summer when it was completely carpeted with daisies,” the artist explains.
“I started to research folklore and myths surrounding the humble daisy, a flower synonymous with childhood. The resulting installation, ‘Daisies – (Vale of Tears)’, is based on traditional Celtic and Christian myths and folklore associated with the simple daisy.”