An Island of Daughters

Part of a larger body of work titled The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home, completed during a spring 2026 residency at Base Camp Studios in Seattle, Washington.

2026, screen print, handmade tea ink, tea leaf, and graphite on paper; series, each 24 × 18 in

An Island of Daughters is a series of mixed-media screen prints made with homemade black tea ink, loose tea, and conventional ink. Female figures in profile evoke Victorian-era silhouettes, a medium historically dismissed as an artisanal craft and deemed a “ladies’ art.” But here, the figures are statuesque and proud in posture, their individual features pronounced, reclaiming the medium and their significance. Several of the prints include text from the poem of the same name by Irish writer Eavan Boland, whose investigation of women’s lives from the margins of official history runs through the series as both influence and language. The series considers cultural inheritance: what is passed down from mothers to daughters, and who is responsible for its legacy. Printed with black tea, the series considers how an unassuming, everyday routine, synonymous with Irish culture and tradition, can reveal the larger histories and structures we inherit and pass along.