Undercurrent

Etaoin Melville 

Vaults

8 August - 30 August 2025

 

Etaoin Melville in conversation with fellow artist Aideen Barry, Saturday 30 August, 12pm

 

‘Undercurrent’ explores the essential nature of human connection and our intrinsic relationship to the land. The work invites us to consider what it means to feel deeply and allow every emotion its full presence. By making space for this emotional depth, we create the possibility of being truly seen by others. Set within carefully chosen natural environments, the installation contemplates the unknown of nature, consciousness and mortality. It follows two individuals as they navigate the complexity of their emotions and the need to be truly seen. Everything in life is cyclical, our physical bodies eventually coil and twine back into the earth.

My Mind is a Forest, 2025, Outer Vault, Single channel video, 7 min, 20 sec:The forest, with its sparse undergrowth, is artificial. Man-made ditches cut through the landscape, dark water moves slowly, creating a stagnant weight in the air. The setting is as much a character as the women who move through it. At first, they are stuck—isolated in their struggle, heavy with the burden of feeling disconnected. In a world growing louder, solitude deepens. As the women begin to move, their bodies, full of emotional memory, start to release. Lightness and darkness mark their non-linear journey. Their final shared gaze is intimate, a mutual recognition of being fully seen and accepted.

Coil and Twine, 2025, Inner Vault, Three channel video, 7 min, 30 sec: Looking at the water’s surface, we are met with reflection and distortion, never quite seeing what lies beneath. The film questions the solidity of our perceived reality and our intertwining with nature. The women are suspended in this liminal womb like space. Blurred and sharp imagery alternate, speaking to the ambiguity of life. Muffled sounds mirror the sensory feeling of being submerged. Everything in life is cyclical, our physical bodies eventually coil and twine back into the earth. How we live our lives is heavily influenced by how we perceive death, a theme that runs throughout my work.

Manchan Mangan writes, “Our ancestors thrived through their connection to the land, an animating force that guided their lives.” This video installation invites viewers to examine the relationship between our inner selves and the natural world. Exploring human concerns, emotions, and our interconnectedness with the environment, challenging how we perceive the earth and its “otherness.” Through carefully selected natural settings, the work raises questions about the unknown, the nature of our existence, consciousness and mortality, viewed from both the human experience and the perspective of interspecies connections. Featuring two individuals navigating their kinship and complex emotions about themselves and their place in the world.  

“I am a visual artist born in West Cork and a member of Sample Studios, Cork. I studied Visual Art in DIT, Sherkin Island, where I received a first-class honours degree, specialising in video and installation. I furthered my technical skills through studies in Film and TV production at St. John’s, Cork. I am an arts facilitator and lead workshops in community arts participation. In 2024 I held two successful solo exhibitions in Working Artist Studios, Ballydehob and 8 Cows Gallery, Allihies and was awarded competitive residencies at Uillinn, Triskel Sample Project Space and Firkin Crane. In 2024 my video work premiered at experimental Film festivals nationally and internationally.”  

“The mediums I work in are film, animation, drypoint printmaking, sculpture and painting. Culminating in installation presentation. I explore my own interior landscape creating no line between my personal life and my artistic expression. I use art as a means to process my experiences; I believe that, at our core, we share similar emotional needs, and art provides a powerful platform to connect with people of all genders, ages, and races. Staying true to myself in my creative process is essential, as it allows for authenticity.”