Maeve Kneafsey

My work explores the traces left behind by nature and humanity — tide marks pressed into sand, the fissures of a gorge, and the subtle imprints of presence, absence, and change. I am drawn to these quiet inscriptions as records shaped by time, pressure, emotion, and the shifting phases of seasons and tides.

Working across drawing, painting, and mixed media, I approach the planet as a living surface that bears witness. Through layering, abrasion, and repeated mark-making, I echo processes of erosion, growth, and renewal. Surfaces are built up and worn back, mirroring cycles of formation and loss, where what we see is only a moment within a much longer story.

More recently, the work has been influenced by vivid dreams following the loss of my mother. These dreams carry a sense of urgency and searching, which enters the work quietly — not as narrative, but as an emotional current running beneath the surface.

Light plays a central role in shaping my work. Subtle shifts in tone and luminosity allow forms to move between calm, joy, unease, and quiet resolve.

By attending to what remains — and how it is illuminated and felt — I seek to reveal the planet, and ourselves within it, as a palimpsest continually rewritten by time, memory, and perception.