‘I heard the term Pareidolia (par-i-DOH-lee-uh) recently on a podcast about cave art in which Dr Isobel Wisher defined it as the “psychological phenomenon of seeing meaningful forms in random patterns”. A more narrow example of this would be to see a face in a rock or the shape of a cat in a cloud. More and more I feel I’m trying to see something (anything?) in the sheer volume of information in our world.

In recent years I have been thinking and reading about historical examples of expansionism. Manifest Destiny was the 19th century ideology under which settlers moved west and occupied the North American continent claiming it as their own… it was a belief in their inherent right to this new land. Manifest destiny, Spazio Vitale and Lebensraum are all terms which ultimately result in states expanding and taking land and resources from other people. I have been worrying about these ideas (and many other things) and trying to understand our present through maps, history and literature. I collect maps on my phone from different points in history. The shapes, sizes and colours of countries are restless, changing between the different time periods. I think about them as frames from an animation which show states with borders pulsing, growing, shrinking… breathing.

I make my paintings with dots, strips and remnants and I build them out of the instincts and interests available to me. I often try to combine different ideas in the one painting, welcoming the inevitable incompatibility that presents itself. I like it when they seem to fight with themselves… at least there is something happening and something at stake. I’d rather paint with my fingers because I don’t much like the way I paint with brushes and I feel it often looks too smooth – that the brush joins forms together too seamlessly. My paintings are made from many pieces, scraps and fragments of other paintings… failures. The paintings are broken but they have been stitched or glued. They are pieced together but not fixed.’

Text written by Mark Swords

Mark Swords is an artist who lives and works in County Wicklow, Ireland. Although principally a painter, Swords’ work also includes sculpture, collage and text. Swords has had significant solo exhibitions at The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, Dublin (Tribuna, 2021) and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin (The living and the dead, 2017).

His recent exhibitions include The list and the line with Alan Phelan at  Casino Marino, Dublin (2024), I must walk toward Oregon at Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin (2023), Portico, with Tanad Aaron at The Complex, Dublin (2021) and TAUCHGANG, a group exhibition at Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne (2019), Lost Highway Guy, 2018, was Swords’ fourth solo show at Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin. Other notable exhibitions include, VOLTABasel, 2014 and I won’t say I will see you tomorrow, 2013, a group project and multi-venue exhibition based on the writings and architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Swords was the recipient of the AIB Art Prize in 2011 which resulted in a solo exhibition at Wexford Arts Centre titled Mosaic. He has had two books published on his work, Tribuna (2022) and Mosaic (2012).