Molly Cairney
Bio
I am an artist and arts professional based in Columbus, Ohio. I work in illustration, collage, and fiber, creating work that connects us to the environment, stories, and each other. I am especially interested in how we have treated the natural worlds in which we have made our homes. I hope my work encourages viewers to slow down and examine more closely how we fit into our landscape and our history.
Artist Statement
I grew up in rural Pennsylvania twelve miles from the Appalachian Trail halfway marker. This region is complicated. Looking south from our front yard I could see two mountains side by side. One, perfectly rising and rolling, was bright green in spring and summer, a riot of color in fall, and frigidly lavender in winter. The other was steadily disappearing into a giant open wound, as a mountain top removal mining company quarried its limestone. Our back yard was a massive garden in constant flux with small ponds, trees, layers of flowers, herbs, shrubs, and vegetables, but also weeds, worms, fungus, and rot. I grew up with that complexity always in my mind. It is what I explore in my art and the lens through which I view life. Nature is wondrous in its ability to renew and rebound, we are stunning in our ability to manipulate and alter it, and that even as we keep trying to make it do what we want, nature protests.
Making art is gardening, mining, and exploring the landscape in ways that make gentle order out of natural chaos. I use recycled materials like mining schematics, seed catalogs, field guides, and maps and work them into my art like compost into soil. I draw portraits of plants, animals, fungus, and insects and layer collaged circles and images that illustrate attempts to manage nature through cataloging, mapping, exploring, and exploiting. I connect the flora and fauna to those relationships. The circles and imagery show all the complexities of those relationships. They are ripples of influence, points on a map, layers of understanding, cycles of experience, and lenses of focus for close-looking.
I began working on this body of work, Birthroot in 2016. Each piece references a relationship, its complexities, and its connection to ecology. The tile refers to Appalachian trillium, also known as birthroot. They are the first flowers to push through the underbrush, unfolding as the snow is melting. They are understated and brief, coming and going in a week or two and heralding new beginnings. This collection of collages is made with that in mind. After a cold time there is a time when nature rebalances. These works show how, like a garden can rise out of compost or plants will reclaim an abandoned building, we grow new lives and relationships out of transitions, trials, and trauma.