Geraldine Leahy/ Winter Issue

Geraldine Leahy is a contemporary landscape artist with an interest in environmental concerns. She returned to education to study art with The Open College of the Arts, the distance-learning partner of The University for the Creative Arts (Farnham, England). A lifelong interest in landscape and the natural world informed her degree studies, and in her final project, she focused on the damaging effects of coastal erosion on one of her local beaches. She has continued to engage with this subject since achieving a BA (Hons) Painting degree in 2022. 

Regular visits to the beach have made the artist aware of the entanglement of natural and manmade materials on the shoreline and of the detrimental effects the latter has had on the littoral environment. Ironically,  Leahy’s use of manmade debris such as plastic and rope, which she embeds into the painting surface by monoprinting, often results in artworks that possess attractive, organic, and flowing qualities. These seemingly innocuous characteristics confirm that manmade materials are stealthy and contagious adversaries, becoming entangled with and imperceptible from their natural counterparts as they contaminate the environment. 

The artist hopes that by highlighting these incongruities, the viewer will be drawn to reflect on the effects their own actions might have on the environment. Consequently, Leahy continually engages with opportunities to submit work to art publications, awards, and exhibitions as a way to bring this concern to a wider audience.