Jenny Mc Namara (b. 1994) is an Irish artist/designer. She’s pattern and colour obsessed and works across a range of media including LED light and sculpture. She has been awarded public funding by Arts Council England to support the development of her work
She’s also an arts organiser and since 2018 has run a project called The Spaghetti Factory with Eve Cromwell, which aims to support early career artists in the North East. She is a Baltic Freelance Artist and currently works as Community Engagement Officer at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens / Sunderland City Council
Through my studio work I explore the relationship between art and wellbeing. I especially love patterns because they can be dazzling, eye-catching, mesmerising, they can draw and hold your attention. Because of this, patterns (both looking for and creating them) become a powerful tool for mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of gently focusing your awareness on the present moment, just relying on your incoming sensory data. The practice of mindfulness has been linked to decreased stress and increased focus and happiness. I research this topic in my work because the ability to quiet your mind is important and powerful, so instead of feeling overwhelmed, we can focus on the things we can change.
Sol LeWitt said in 1967, ‘Art that is meant for the sensation of the eye primarily would be called perceptual rather than conceptual’. Drawing inspiration from Minimalism and Op Art, my work embraces the idea that art should be a sensation for the eye. My studio practice involves the creation of ‘pattern machines’ – sculptures that use lenses and reflective materials to disrupt patterns and generate new ones. By using strong line and simple colour palettes, I aim to minimise visual clutter and allow the viewer to focus on the relationship between form, colour and space.
By photographing patterns found in the world, I explore how the application of color and rhythm can transform our mostly grey cities into spaces of focus and joy. I like the repetition involved in making patterns, I find it calming and it makes me feel focused. There’s something nice about doing the same thing over and over again, like knitting. It’s a meditative act. This is mindfulness in practice: a gentle awareness of incoming sensory data. When we focus on the present pattern, we are momentarily released from the anxieties of the past and future.
To see is to remember. Our brains identify the world by comparing new images against a catalog of past images. They process, filter, and reassemble visual scenes very quickly – in a fifth of a second. My sculptures explore our immediate emotional response to colour and pattern and the productive struggle of looking at the unfamiliar. By stripping away representational imagery, there’s no identical match in your stored memories. This moment of de-familiarisation is an opportunity for new neural pathways to form. This focuses us to truly see what is in front of us rather than relying on the visual shortcuts we use day to day. I invite you to find pleasure in the simple act of looking.
Illustration by David Shrigley for the APPG on Arts, Health and Wellbeing Report: Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing 2017.
Processing steps of the visual stream, from Expert Reviews in Molecular Medicine by Cambridge University Press, 2004