Clara McSweeney

Clara McSweeney is a graduate of Fine Art Painting and Contemporary Practice at Limerick School of Art and Design. She received the Innovation in practice award 2020 for her degree show body of work. She is currently working as a Marketing and Tourism Intern for The Hunt Museum in Limerick City while also practicing as a visual artist. Clara is an active member of Limerick Print Makers and Miscreating Sculpture Studios Limerick. Her most recent achievements included being awarded, runner-up in The Screaming Pope Prize 2021 at K-Fest emerging arts festival and completing a two-month residency in PADA studios and gallery in Barreiro Portugal.

The Remnants and Leftover series of limited-edition prints were completed during a two-month stay at the PADA residency in Barreiro Portugal. Found objects from the Companhia Uniao Fabril (CUF) abandoned industrial park that interested the artist are imprinted onto watercolour using the cyanotype process. This work was then overlayed with orange fabric dye that bleaches the cyanotype while keeping a vibrant pigment. This luminous orange was used to represent the toxicity of the CUF industrial park which was in business in Barreiro from 1907 to 1974. During this time, it produced toxic material such as resin, sulfuric acid, and phosphate. The objects used to produce these cyanotype imprints were discovered lying around this contaminated landscape.