Billie Ireland
‘Life V Death’, Wooden box, carved traditional gesso, photograph, pyrography on paper and hand felted wool. 45 x 30 cm (2014).
Billie Ireland is an artist mother living in Mid-Wales. Her multi-disciplinary approach is used to capture raw and intuitive responses to her experience of biological and spiritual birth. The artist’s ongoing research themes are grief, memory, trauma and the maternal. Her practice continues to be rooted in the handmade and her interest in the tradition and alchemy of craft and materials.
Images top left - bottom right: Boob 1. Breast is best or a pest, Traditional gesso on wood panel, egg yolk, human hair and wax, 60 x 47cm (2018). Breastfeeding Portrait, Handmade Elderberry Ink on acid free paper, 155 x 115cm (2019). Breastfeeding Portrait (Twins), Cut It Out, Homemade Casein, Egg Tempera, Elderberry, Onion and Oak Gall and Acrylic Ink on Paper, Pierced, sewn and painted. 40 x 40cm (2020). Human Mapping: Moon, Womb, Tomb, Homemade Elderberry, Onion and Oak Gall and Acrylic Ink on paper, Pierced, sewn and painted, 65 x 168cms (2020). Seven Layers Cut, Homemade Casein, lime, Egg Tempera, Elderberry, Onion, Oak Gall, Acrylic Ink, pigments and linseed oil on Paper, Pierced, sewn and painted, 50 x 50cm (2020).