MARKINGS, the project gathers together and explores the different marks used by farmers to identify their sheep in the North West of Ireland. Each painting pays tribute to the farmer whose wool it comprises; painted dot motifs replicate symbols from each farmer’s unique sheep-marking vocabulary. At a time when traditional methods of farming are in decline, the artworks become vessels, repositories of knowledge and memory. The large, hand-felted raw wool canvases are painted using animal branding paints. The project includes photographic documentation, video installation, excerpts from discussions with Benedict Gallagher sheep farmer, and an interactive sculptural work.

Today, under European regulations, sheep must be marked with a uniformly coded ear tag. But farmers in Ireland persist in painting their sheep. What may seem like an anachronism demonstrates hard-earned knowledge, pragmatism, and creativity and tells whose land is whose just by looking—these visual cues represent a history of human ingenuity mapped onto the bodies of animals and the environment.

The project documents the different marking systems used by highland, lowland, and pedigree sheep farmers in North West of Ireland. The resulting exhibition is spread over 4 connected galleries, showing 6 large hand-felted raw wool canvases, 5 smaller scale raw wool works, accompanied by photographic documentation, a two-channel video installation including excerpts from discussions with Benedict Gallagher sheep farmer, and an interactive sculptural work.

A series of large hand-felted raw wool canvases painted using animal branding fluid, marking crayon, and marker spray. Each painting pays tribute to the farmer whose wool it comprises; painted dot motifs replicate symbols from each farmer’s unique sheep-marking vocabulary. The raw wool, its fibers reconfigured, but smelling, looking, feeling like itself as locks pull away from the felted base, each canvas defiantly flocculent, sheep-like. At a human scale— just over six feet tall—these paintings assert their woolliness, suggesting comfort and physical intimacy.

In a related sculpture, titled ‘Transition’ viewers are invited to sit inside a fleece-lined box, to touch and surround themselves in the shaggy material, to bury their noses and inhale its earthy fragrance. The series of smaller scale works, titled ‘Fragments' is a rearranged composition of the original colours and markings of the farmers, taken out of their fleeces before the felting process. The two-channel video installation intends to create the experience of the artist, being on-site observing and engaging in conversation with the farmer, Benedict Gallagher, Mullagh, County Sligo. The sound file of the video installation, excerpts from discussions with Benedict Gallagher on Sheep Breeds, Markings, Horn Branding, Sheep Shearing, Pens, Dosing, Lambing Season, Marking and tagging of the ears, Hefting, Illnesses and Cures, Skills, Past and Future. Video work (duration 9.8 min.) The exhibition includes photographic documentation of all participants in the project. This includes the farmers, the sheep, and the wool which they kindly donated.