Dublin Art Book Fair 2024

Two of my art books ” Odd Socks don’t get washed” and ” Out Of Pocket” were included in the December 2024 Dublin Artist Book Fair.

“Odd Socks don’t get washed” is an observational piece that draws from the domestic. This is a classic zine made using the 8 fold method. The original book is hand drawn, copies are, following tradition, made using a photocopier.
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“Out of Pocket” is a funny play with pocket folds in books, and the many pockets in my jeans. It is a multimedia piece utilising printmaking and watercolour techniques. Each book is hand painted and printed.

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Artist Statement 2025

Drawing and researching are at the core of my practice. My work begins in my notebooks, drawing from life- this culminates into final presentations of concept in textile and video.

As an Artist in the early 21st century there are infinite traditional and contemporary material and method available. In this era of generative AI, the making of the art object, is a process that I value ownership of. My textile pieces are made by my hand, from knit fabrics to crocheted found materials using process or constructions that cannot be replicated by machine. I collect the video footage I use from the day to day.

This choice of processes gives me freedom to explore geometry, space and non linear narratives without the permission of existing procedure.

Rebecca Tighe Bio. 2025

Rebecca Tighe is an artist who grew up in the North West of Ireland. Her practice is research and drawing led, it frequently branches into video and textile practices. She likes to play with concepts from Math and Science. In 2023 she graduated from NCAD with a H.Dip in fine art.
Her textile work has been shown with IMMA, Rua Red and DCCI. Her short films have screened around the island of Ireland and in the USA where they were short listed for prizes.

Europe in the Heart of Ireland

My Painting “Heart Drive” is part of the ” Europe in the Heart of Ireland” exhibition. This is the first exhibition in the Europa Gallery, part of the new Europa Experience in Dublin Opening in October 2024. It is Acrylic Paint on Canvas 30cmX30cm. After showing in Dublin, this exhibition will be on show in the Hammilton Gallery Sligo until February 2025.
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Blanket Statement

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“Blanket Statement” is a work commissioned by IMMA for the Earth Rising Eco Festival October 2022.
“Blanket Statement” is a functional and interactive picnic blanket. I made it with a combination of branded, identifiable plastics and anonymous waste found at a domestic level over the course of 3 months.
Site specific to Kilmainham, “Blanket Statement” is a visual representation of 21st century material. Between Kilmainham and Christchurch, there is a high density of middens, or waste disposal sites from viking and middle aged Ireland. The organic material in these sites broke down over time and became part of the reason why Dublin grew and developed the way it did. Plastics will not breakdown and create a rich soil the way that organic materials can, instead it poses the question ” What do we do with all this plastic?”
This piece is made from plastics that are not typically recycled, soft and single use plastics. Some of these materials are “Wishful Recycling” or materials that while technically recyclable, are not recycled after the sorting process. This can be for a number of reasons including being a composite of many types of plastic, being a dark or unusual colour or because in the end it is not economically viable.
I took these materials and cut them into strips so they can become a yarn like material. I crocheted this yarn into squares and rectangles. Crochet cannot be replicated by machines, so all crochet is made with human hands. There are 30 panels of crocheted plastic in “Blanket Statement”.  15 of these panels are double, or treble crochet stitches, 15 of these panels are made with a granny square motif. Granny Squares are a very traditional and familiar crochet motif, you will have seen them before in handmade baby blankets and the fashion from the 70’s.
By investing the time and labour required to make the panels of plastic crochet, I’ve changed the value of the plastic waste. Given a new form and purpose, the durability, flexibility and weather resistance of the plastic is embraced.

Repair

IMMA Earth Rising

I have been commissioned by IMMA to create an interactive installation for part of the Earth Rising Eco Art Festival. The event is on from Friday the 21st to Sunday the 23rd of October. Tickets are free, and available the IMMA website.

For this piece I worked with various types of found plastics, and really ended up dwelling on the question of:
What do we do with the Plastics that will continue to exist?
https://imma.ie/whats-on/earth-rising/

EarthRising

Crúinniú na nÓg Workshop

As part of Crúinniú na nÓg on June 11th, I ran a workshop in Gorey Library for Children aged 9-12. Each child made their own character. Then in groups, they wrote a short story and designed a background for their puppets. I introduced the basics of stop motion animation and frame rate. We shot the animation and each child posed their own characters.

Covid Videos

Building from the previous research module, in the final module of the year I made 3 short videos. Once again this very much looks and processes the COVID times that we were starting to emerge from.
As part of this module I made another soft crocheted sculpture.

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Research Module 2

In this module I start using crochet and textiles to make soft sculptures and graphs. This is the start of a project that looks and deals with COVID 19 very directly.
This is the first self directed modules of the course.
The crochet Blanket shows a graph of the COVID 19 vaccine uptake rate in Ireland. The yellow creatures are personifications of the many variants of COVID 19.

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Printmaking Module

There were two explorations in printmaking for me- the first was an overlap between print and video. This looked at the idea of making, and unmaking. It’s also the first use of video/animation in a fine art context during these studies.
The second exploration develops the embossing I use in the the first part of the module and incorporates colour.

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Bio 2022

Rebecca is an Artist from the North West of Ireland. She has a varied background ranging from Animation, Website Design and content development, to building scripts and 3D assets for machine learning and research projects.
In 2021 she moved towards developing her fine art practice. Since then her work has be exhibited with DCCI and she has been commissioned by IMMA to make an interactive installation for the Earth Rising Eco Festival in October 2022.
Rebecca likes to use humor, chronological order and observations in her work. She frequently borrows from her technical background, and uses many disciplines in her practice including video, textiles and drawing.

She’s studying Fine Art (H.Dip) in the National College of Art and Design Ireland (2022). If you have any questions or queries, you can contact her at rebecca.tighe@gmail.com

Painting Module

For this module I started with the some of the images I had gathered in the photography module.
Digital Cameras do not create a record of light present at a time, but rather a set of instructions to recreate what was detected by the digital sensor as pixels for a screen. With the opening and closing of the Digital Image, it changes.
Similarly when remembering a memory, the Memory is not the recollection of the time itself, but rather the last time you recalled the the Memory. In each recollection it changes.
This body of work exists as a record of intersecting thoughts, the paintings build from this relationship between digital imaging, and memory. An overlap between a physical place, and psychological one.

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Photography Review

FB_IMG_1591909361905I’m really excited to have a photo published in 2 Meter Review coming out on June 17th.
The photo included is “2 Millimetres” from a series of photos taken around mid March during the most restrictive phase of the lockdown.