The Environment in our Eyes 1 by Sian Hoolahan

Concern for the environment and recycling are a big part of Sian Hoolahan’s philosophy and outlook. She is trying to do the least harm with her art practice. She creates art both in ceramics and on paper and challenges herself to recycle, repurpose and reuse all her art materials.
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She is drawn to using collages, both in her 2D and 3D work. Sian is interested in complex relationships and expressing emotions that appear to be opposite to each other but are often experienced at the same time: like comforting insecurity or calm impatience. Contrasting colours, images and objects represent and give the element of surprise at both the diversity and the complex balance of life.
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Sian's work notices that our emotions are fluid they can swiftly change like the air, blowing freely and giving the breath of life one moment: then stultifying and stifling the next.

Sian Hoolahan has been exploring female wellbeing and caring for the environment throughout her artistic career. As a young girl, she began creating art as a means of dealing with her mother’s mental ill health and then later with her fight against breast cancer.
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She grew up in West Sussex, but after being heavily influenced by her teacher Gillian Lowndes and gaining a First-class BA Hons degree in the late 1980s at Camberwell School of Art, she has lived and worked many decades in London.
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Sian creates poetic and surreal ceramic sculptures decorated with transfers. Our interconnections to each other and our internal and external landscapes are her major themes.
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She combines different clays and hand paints her glazes. Each piece goes through several firings to different temperatures. She then paints using low temperature on-glaze colours and transfer images until she feels the work is complete.