The Award Winner of The Leitrim Design House National Design, Craft & Art Award 2023, Tracy Fry, showcases her first solo exhibition ‘Mapping’ on ARTWALL from February 4th. Tracy’s love of maps evokes a curiosity of local and distant landscapes, highlighting an intrinsic and instinctive need to explore and protect our world. Resin maps and landscapes address themes such as identity, memory, and belonging. Through the medium of textured collagraph print plates abstracted map-based and landscape works form this collection, which includes the award-winning piece ‘Estuary’.
Tracy's statement circular resin maps of familiar localities capture topography and connections in a modern abstract style. Her work takes central inspiration from the environment and from the marks we as humans leave on the Earth and showcases a variety of techniques combined together that include painting, printing and sculptural elements to create one off pieces. In this exhibition ‘Mapping’, she highlights her own unique self-developed relief- collagraph works.
Tracy embarked on her journey into collagraph map pieces during the darkest depths of the pandemic. Having grown up surrounded by the sea, woodland and mountains, she appreciated from a young age how mankind and nature are completely interdependent on each other. Her love of maps evokes a curiosity of local and distant landscapes, allowing her abstracted map themed works to explore this interdependency. In her own words, "Maps leads us to areas of beauty, further highlighting this connectivity. We seek beauty and transport networks of roads and other modes of transportation enable us to escape from the daily grind in order to seek out this beauty. During our best and worst moments in life we all seek refuge in nature.” Her winning piece for the 2023 Leitrim Design Awards, ‘Estuary’, depicts the Shannon estuary and how vulnerable the area would be without important environmental safeguards being in place. Where the Shannon's diverse aquaculture and landmass encircle the alumina refinery. This winning piece from The Leitrim Design House Award reminds us yet again of the delicate dance mankind performs with our beautiful natural surroundings.
Tracy's pandemic journey reconnected her to the landscape. She reflects "I had time to explore new techniques, time to make mistakes and time to experiment. I want my work to evoke those experiences we have in nature, why we go there, and how we feel while there with family and friends. Many of our best days in our lives are spent outdoors in the beauty of nature with those we love. Unless we bring that love of nature into our homes, will it be consigned to nostalgia alone?”
Keen to continuously expand and enhance her practice, Tracy prioritises sustainable, natural and recycled materials. She exhibited at Showcase Ireland at the RDS in January 2025 with the Louth Local Enterprise Office, launching her new Wild Irish and Celtic Copper Collections alongside her Ogham Jewellery and collagraph castings. Tracy is a member of Art as Exchange (AAEX) Dundalk, Louth Craftmark, and the Creative Spark Print Studio. This new exhibition ‘Mapping’ will incorporate several abstracted map-based and landscape pieces, principally relief collagraphs. ‘Estuary’ will return and be on display as part of this unique exhibition which continues until March 5th. The Leitrim Design House thanks the Local Enterprise Office Leitrim for their kind sponsorship of these awards.
