Aislinn O’Donnell
she/her
Ecological Intimacies
The stories, genealogies, and histories of materials matter. I imagine the imprints of early hominid hands in clay, the sculpting of vessels or the pungency of honeycomb and beeswax. This work brings together multiple kinds of matter in small assemblages, organic and inorganic, in order to create little worlds that eschew claims to purity, lineage and origin. At times, it’s not clear which elements are cast, like the dehydrated oyster mushrooms, or which are in another sensory dialogue like ceramic-like polymer clay little beings with their accompanying oyster shells. Mixed into the pieces, often through wax, are healing elements like turmeric, ginger or other spices that serve as gestures towards kinder modes of relating, allowing bodies to rest when they need to heal as best they can. Alongside are their portrait drawings.
This is a fabulation of a world of deep kinship with all beings from the small stone to the lichen to the sliding plastics of acrylic paints. It is offered as a speculative, poetic fiction. Extending beyond a conviction that all life is my kin, I invite attunement to the qualities of all bodies, their inner mineral or chemical lives, and to the cells that are part of the multitude and that sometimes go their own way. Beings in symbiosis wander and settle. Hybrid existences go on, as Beckett says, finding moments of joy and conviviality where they can.
The Gathering, Posca drawing on acrylic-painted Fabriano paper, desiccated oyster mushroom, Jesmonite, textile dyed in turmeric-infused wax, honeycomb, wax cast dyed with turmeric and copper carbonate, dried celeriac in chilli- and turmeric-infused wax, oyster shell, dimensions vary.
Your Given Life, copper carbonate, and turmeric-infused wax, polymer clay, dimensions vary.
To Live Oneself Before Every Gesture, acrylic-painted board, clay traces of prints, gel pens, Posca markers, furry residue from trees, 30 × 13.5 cm.
Introducing the Resident Therolinguistic Experts, printed Fabriano Rosaspina paper, embroidery, Posca markers, polychrome pencil, pastel, acrylic paint, 42 × 31.5 cm.
Life Is Grace, Swerves, and Abundance, pastel, Polychromos pencils, gel pens, Posca markers, acrylic paint, with stitched-in leaves and free-motion machine embroidery, 52 × 42 cm.
"We Love Symbiosis!", Say the Lichens, gel pens, pastel, and Polychromos pencil with acrylic paint on pastel paper, 42 × 31.5 cm.
In Praise of Weird Little Beings, red wax, polymer clay, oyster shells, Jesmonite, Herculite cast of branch, dimensions variable.
Against Purity, polymer clay, Herculite cast of branch, oyster shells, fragmented dyed Jesmonite, red wax sculpture, dehydrated oyster mushroom, shell, free embroidery, lichen twig, embroidery material dyed in a turmeric and copper carbonate wax mix, cast oyster shell in turmeric- and copper carbonate-infused wax, Posca drawing on acrylic-painted Fabriano paper, dimensions variable.
To Feel and Experience We Are Eternal (for Spinoza), clay, painted wood, oyster mushroom, Jesmonite, air-drying clay coated in turmeric-infused wax and yellow copper oxide wax, mussel shell, moss, lichen, acorn, dimensions variable.
There Are Only Multitudes, pastel, gel pens, and Posca markers with embroidery stitching on painted pastel paper, turmeric-infused wax on textile, 43 × 29 cm.