Hi, I’m Jacks

I’m an Irish-Australian artist, craftsperson and mother of two outrageously awesome young people.  I’ve been living, working, studying and raising my kids on Bundjalung Country (Northern NSW).  I have recently completed a Diploma of Indigenous Knowledge at Southern Cross University and am currently studying a Bachelor of Art and Design also at SCU.  Through my studies, I’m exploring various mediums, including printmaking, drawing and painting, weaving these in with ongoing practices with wood and pyrography.

Even though I planned to attend art school when I left high school, my circumstances led me to a job in finance.  Turns out I was good with numbers and I stayed in that field my entire adult life...until recently.  I found my way back to art after I became awestruck by the beauty of a spiral pattern within a flower.  I soon discovered that the pattern is based on the Fibonacci Sequence, a number ratio that is reflected everywhere in nature, from seed heads to snail shells.  My first artwork in many years was a massive sunflower displaying the beautiful spiraling pattern.  So I went from working with numbers to create financial harmony for businesses, to creating visual harmony with nature’s numbers!

The impact of colonisation is a thread that informs my art.  Born near Belfast, Northern Ireland in the 1970s amidst the Irish conflict that was occurring due to British colonisation, my family migrated to Australia inspired by the British Government’s promise of a better life.  It wasn’t until decades later that I learnt that the ‘land of opportunity’ that was offered to European migrants came at a heavy and horrific expense to First Nations people in Australia.  My Irish ancestral experience as the colonised blended with my lived experience in Australia as the coloniser.  This has had a powerful impact on me, and through art, I explore both experiences as oppressed and oppressor, colonised and coloniser.

My emerging art practice is influenced by a desire to live and walk respectfully on Country, to listen deeply and respond lovingly.  This is reflected in my use of recycled materials and sustainable, earth friendly materials wherever possible.  I create art that reminds us of our interconnectedness and is a remembering of our collective story to weave us back into wholeness…art to reawaken our sense of connection.