Abbeygale Corrigan (b.1997) from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. Living in London since 2016. Graduated from University of the Arts London; London College of Communication, getting a First in BA Illustration and Visual Media , where she learnt printmaking. Since 2019, she has been studying MA Print at the Royal College of Art.
Continuing her print practice in Sacramento, California in 2022 with Victor Watson prize (2019).
My main subject matter is human interference, and how we as humans have disrupted natural order. Principally focusing on nuclear power and nuclear disaster. I am looking at how nature adapts to this type of disruption, healing itself in order to live long past mankind has made himself extinct.
I have been looking into a mushroom called, 'Cladosporium Sphaerospermum', which due to radio-synthesis, thrives on toxic radiation given off as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. My research into this mushroom has given me the inspiration to look further at how the earths landscape will change in years to come. Once mankind has inevitably eradicated its existence, only then will nature finally be able to heal its own evolutionary endeavours.
This mushroom is a perfect example of nature adapting to mankind's wrong doings. My works are a representation of mycelial life, and the regrowth of nature, once man is gone. Absorbing all toxic radiation after nuclear disasters. This is shown through a collection of sculptures, film & stone lithographs, made with touchè washes. Using the technique of these washes to determine how they dry is very important to my work. Allowing this medium to have a mind, its own and have its own destiny of colour and detail. Representing how nature will take its own course.
Print is made up of two layers of different gradients layers on the stone producing this impactful print, with a lot of depth and tone. This complex detail tells a story.
This print originated from a broken piece of concrete from a previous experimentation, where I thought, 'this shard encompasses all that is wrong with humanity'. Representing the woes and wrong we have done to the world. Breaking it slowly.
Another significance in this work came from my research into the moments after the Chernobyl disaster, when fire fighters has no idea what they were dealing with. Picking up shards of radioactive lead with their gloved hands, dying minutes later. Through mankind's greed for energy and power they created one of the deadliest substances on earth.
This work is unique because it is a print on a concrete sculpture I had made which was about 15cm tall, which was then photo manipulated to become a print on paper.
This work focuses on the toxic materials created due to nuclear disasters at the fault of mankind. This print represents concrete houses that will be kept forever as a statue & symbol around the site of Chernobyl to deter human life. Where mushrooms that thrive off toxic waste can live in harmony without the interference of humanity.
A prominent influence for this work has been Dark Ecology by Timothy Morton. Where on page 161 says,
‘let's get a small piece of plutonium, store them in a way that we can monitor them, and encase them in a substance that will not leak radiation, above ground, so you can maintain the structure and so that you can take responsibility for it, you, the human, made the plutonium, or you the human can understand what it is - therefore you are responsible. Lets put these structure in the middle of every town square in the land.'
'Spore' my final work in this series, represents the form of the origins of the mycelium and the intricate detail of its being. Representing new life.
While practicing stone lithography I have mainly been using oil crayons and water based touché washes. For this print I developed a soap wash technique, which I feel further represents new life post human self extinction.
This is due to the bubbles on the stone, they are completely independent in the way they mark the stone, so the textures are created with no interference from my own hand. I have also noticed created a really strong depth of colour within the stone print. I feel like this really contrasts with my more detailed water based stone wash.
My Film 'The Mushroom Cloud' (2021) , merges the evolution of the mushroom from nuclear pollution.
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