The painting responds to Annemarie Ní Churreáin's poem Bog Medicine and its final line which reads, "until the stream runs dark with what needs to blacken out of you." I wanted my work to be a healing response to this phrase in particular and so here the leaf is seen carrying off and healing that which 'needs to blacken out of you' and leaving the stream to run clear again. 

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I made this work for the exhibition BLOODROOT, at Klinkenberg Galeries, Pulchri Studio in The Hague, the Netherlands in February 2025. It was coordinated by the Hamilton Gallery, Sligo.

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Bog Medicine                                                                           

by Annemarie Ní Churreáin

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Drink these star-leafed nettles

and keep in your purse a fern.

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To become invisible, say your harm

to the hill.

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This hill is pagan.

This hill is Hill.

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It will answer in bog-tongue

and occasional fire,

burning back the earth

along the heather stream

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despite bald heels of rock,

despite the kissy mink,

despite a saintly air

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until the stream runs dark

with what needs

to darken out of you.

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