THE HORIZON - LÉASLÍNE IN IRISH - IS THE DELICATE LINE WHERE SEA AND SKY APPEAR TO MEET. FOR MANY YEARS IT HAS QUIETLY APPEARED THROUGHOUT MY WORK. IN 2018 I DEVOTED TIME TO CREATING A SERIES OF PICTURES FOCUSED SOLELY ON THE ATLANTIC HORIZON ALONG THE WEST COAST OF IRELAND.

Léaslíne

A line between worlds - and everything it holds

Created on the Atlantic Coast, Ireland : 2018

The origins of this project lie in an earlier picture of mine titled Flat Calm (1997) – an image of extreme simplicity: a perfectly still sea beneath an equally still sky, divided only by the horizon. Water and air reduced to their most elemental forms. Silent, infinite, and timeless.

The pictures in Léaslíne pursue that same simplicity. In many ways they could not appear more minimal, yet their creation requires patience and persistence. They rely entirely on the delicate alignment of sea, sky and light.

All of the photographs were made within a short stretch of coastline close to my home. I returned to these places repeatedly, often sitting for hours watching the subtle changes in the relationship between water and sky as time passed. There is something deeply contemplative about sitting alone before the horizon. It invites reflection.

For countless generations of Irish people this same horizon carried profound meaning. During the nineteenth century, as famine devastated the country, millions looked westward across the Atlantic in search of a new beginning. For some it represented hope and opportunity. For others it remained an unreachable distance.

These pictures are a quiet acknowledgement of that history – and a reflection on the horizon itself. A line that can represent both separation and possibility- and the enduring human instinct to look beyond it…