1iing Heaney - World Without End

1iing heaney’s debut solo at Mermaid Arts Centre explores themes of preservation, perpetual life, replication, and authenticity in the digital world. Emanating from the artist’s ongoing research into Wicklow’s protected native oak forest at Tomnafinnoge Woods, heaney takes objects from nature and re-presents them as virtual and reimagined artefacts.

Using a blend of digital imaging and scanning methods, she proposes a microcosmic exploration of technological integration in the natural world, reimagining the fruit and seeds of trees and plants as companions to vibrant 3D-printed sculptures rendered in brilliant hypernatural colour, interspersed with germinating acorns from Tomnafinnogue oak trees .

Combined with lo-fi electronics and small scale CGI videos, these ‘cyber botanicals’ speculate on the growth and life of organisms in digital space, creating what the artist refers to as a kind of ‘uncanny nature table’.

The exhibition’s accompanying limited edition booklet offers an a pair of specially commissioned essays by National Museum of Ireland Country Life Keeper Clodagh Doyle and heaney’s occasional collaborator Emily Aoibheann, each speculating on the nature of these imaginings. Are they a kind of botanic changeling signifying future hybrids?

Mysterious and mystical, the viewer is asked to consider the passage of digital time and seasonal change, and the myriad possibilities as they meet.

World Without End is also kindly supported by Fingal Arts Office and The Courthouse Arts Centre, Co. Wicklow.

Artist Biography

1iing heaney is a visual artist from Bray, Co. Wicklow, currently based in North Dublin. She graduated from NCAD in 2015 with a BA in Fine Art and Visual Culture. Working with CGI through video, print and sculpture, 1iing’s work explores virtual space as an extension of the geological world. Currently her work focuses on the future of nature and wildness within digital technologies. She is currently an artist in residence in the Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow.

Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, with exhibitions including Sapling, Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow (2023), In Suspension, Ballina Arts Centre, Co. Mayo (2022), and Hyper,Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin (2019). Group shows include Caibleadh, an online VR film made in collaboration with iCRAG, commissioned by Science Foundation Ireland (2021), New Irish Video, HDLU, Zagreb (2020), Nature, ZAZ 10 Times Square’s digital billboard, New York (2020), and group show Geological Cake in 126 Gallery, Galway and the Burren College of Art Gallery (2017).

1iing’s recent awards include the Visual Artist Bursary, Arts Council Ireland (2020/22), Fingal County Council Artist Support Scheme (2022/23), Strategic Project Award, Wicklow County Council (2020), Artist Support Scheme, Wicklow County Council (2019&2016), and the Emerging Irish Artist Residency Award, Burren College of Art (2016).