gregory seán sheehan
visual artist
Comtemplations on memory
and the passage of time.


Although firmly anchored in the unique topography of a particular landscape, Gregory Seán Sheehan’s work would not be described as landscape painting in a realistic, geographical, or pictorial sense.

For the last three decades Gregory Sheehan has been working with mountain turf gathered from blanket-bogland in Ireland. His deep connection to this archaic material activated a cascade of impressions which transformed his modus operandi and the subject matter of his work.

Sheehan explores a transposed view of a landscape — the focus directed towards both the inherent processes involved in the landscapes formation and the evolutionary and transformational qualities slumbering therein; just out of sight and just beyond comprehension.

» Turf, or bog-peat is a material which bears witness to cycles of growth, decay and continuous transformations. In other words, a material with an ecological, geological and mythical narrative. Turf speaks to us in quiet unobtrusive ways, perhaps reminding us that we are anchored in and part of a very finely balanced ecological environment «

Blanket bogs are not only large areas of self regulating biotopes providing habitats for numerous animals, birds, insects and plants but also landscape in it’s most resilient and durable instance. Found mainly in northern hemispheres, undisturbed blanket bogs have been self-regulating entities for periods of up to twelve thousand years.




Re-edited in December 2018, this short video is about a sense of place and inspiration. The footage was taken on a visit to the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains in 2017. The objects and paintings evolved subsequently.

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