Siobhán McDonald
Crystalline

My works seek to merge the poetic and the scientific. In my projects, I like to consider disciplines like physics from an artistic point of view, and to think about the larger context in which the Earth exists.

Artist Siobhan McDonald is fascinated by time and the changeable nature of landmass. Scientists believe that the extent of man’s impact on the Earth since the Industrial Revolution has ushered in a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene. Brought together for the first time at CCI, the artist’s works have been evolving within this context for a number of years through her collaboration with researchers and an expedition in June 2015 to witness the disappearance of the Arctic landscape.

Delicate oil paintings (see above), photogenic drawings, seeds, a sound installation and sculptural pieces... Siobhan McDonald has employed a wide range of techniques for this project.

	Crystalline, for example, is an installation of sculpted fragments coated with carbon and charred bone. This coating was developed by Irish company Enbio for thermal control of satellites and deep space probes!. Crystalline – Solar Orbiter, 2016 (détail)
	Cyathea australis 2016 is a series of photogenic drawings made with silver nitrate and light on antique paper. Created as part of the Programme for Experimental Atmospheres and Climate at University College Dublin, the image was generated in carboniferous glacial atmospheres of 400 ppm CO2 and 24% O2.

The artist is also exhibiting a decorative glass vessel encapsulating some of this deadly atmosphere from 400 million years ago!

A veritable alchemist in her marrying of art and science, Siobhan McDonald views these works as “real and imaginary portholes into other times”.

Curator of the exhibition: Helen Carey

Watch this 4-minute documentary on Crystalline