DROICHEAD NA SÍDHE
FOCAL POINT GALLERY
ESSEX, UK
2025
Railway Bridge Commission
Sat 19 Jul to Sun 19 Oct 2025
Focal Point Gallery is pleased to present our annual Railway Bridge Commission with a new site-specific public artwork by multi-disciplinary artist, Hazel O’Sullivan.
Droichead na Sídhe is a two-part artwork composed of eight individual acrylic paintings on canvas that have been photographed, digitally enlarged and assembled into two banner-scale prints. The compositions are based on intricate folios from illuminated Celtic manuscripts, reinterpreted as embodied form though a painting process that explores space and mythology.
Each component engages with a reductive tromp-l’œil technique, where contrasting tones of colour are placed side by side to suggest space and physical depth. The colours are informed by small chromatic passages from Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒50 at the National Gallery in London, as a visit sparked by an interest in early perspective painting. This historical technique is reconfigured here to emphasise symbolic form over direct representation.
The title, Droichead na Sídhe (Bridge of the Fairies), references locations in the Irish landscape believed to be thresholds or gateways to the Otherworld. These locations are of historical and mythological significance and lie permanently undisturbed as sites of respect, superstition and caution. This work intends to transform the railway bridge into a physical and symbolic threshold that explores both medieval and mythological visual traditions on its own terms.
