I made this drawing within the context of my psycho-geography project within the confines of the Lockdown in 2020. I was walking to the most westerly point in the farm where I live. There is a sketchbook for each point in the compass. I also went at different times in the day and on different days. Within this specific work I had made the decision to keep the pencil/graphite on the (khadi) paper. This route is quite a smooth, road related journey and takes you to the railway line, this gives the drawing and walking a public element. Although the trains had no one on them and were down to a skeletal service – it was the same with the lack of flight traffic and road traffic in this time – we got closer to nature, the month’s changes and the roll of the year. It enabled a reconnection with the natural surroundings around us, the corners of the landscape that we would not visit, of course this was one of the principal reasons for the project or the ‘dérive’.
Within his practice Eòghann looks at how we interact with our immediate environment. In 2020, due to Covid-19 lockdown, this became a kind of palimpsest procession, back into the future, in real time. His recent practice has explored this, within the local confines of ‘home’, a semi-rural, part working farm where he lives. Movement and timbre, place and connection are all integral and the process of capture, both intuitive and focused are his practice. Following a cow path or drifting towards a celestial. Walking and re-walking, returning to the same locations at different points in a month or the year.
Eòghann was an Offender Lecturer in Art. A recipient of the Alasdair Salvesen Travel Scholarship and Neach Ealain Lèirsinn, the Artist in Residence at the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. He was an elected member in his local authority of East Ayrshire. He continues to draw and perambulate.