Mary Sheehan
My work relates to The Fold through both its physical form and conceptual concerns. The folded surfaces of my scrolls, ink blots, and paper works operate as sites where interior and exterior, concealment and revelation, coexist. Created through processes of folding, unfolding, rolling, staining, and repetition, the works embody memory as something layered, unstable, and continually in formation rather than fixed.
Drawing on family histories of Irish migration, intergenerational trauma, and archival research surrounding my great-aunt Edith’s fatal industrial accident, the fold becomes a metaphor for inherited experience. Histories are compressed within the material, then partially revealed through marks, creases, tears, and mirrored forms. The physical fold creates hidden spaces and thresholds, suggesting the ways personal and collective memories remain embedded within bodies, objects, and landscapes.
The scrolls themselves resist remaining flat, continually curling back into their rolled state. This tension between expansion and compression reflects Deleuze’s understanding of the fold as a continuous process rather than a fixed structure. The works move between presence and absence, visibility and obscurity, transforming paper into a surface where time folds back upon itself. Through these layered forms, I explore how migration, memory, grief, and identity are not singular narratives but pleated experiences that continue to unfold across generations.
