Description
Ciara Denton
Ciara Denton’s practice combines digital photography, fabric, and print-based media to explore her shifting relationship with Catholicism and her sense of heritage as an Irish national born in Britain. As her faith becomes more secular, she uses materials, light, and gesture to reflect on the tension between inherited tradition and personal identity.
Early works centred on marriage and Catholic ritual, incorporating her mother’s wedding veil and fabrics such as lace and silk. These materials, tied to ceremony and belief, became a way of examining the weight of inherited rituals. Combined with a single light source, the fabrics cast intense shadows, a visual language that continues to guide her work. Screen printing extends this investigation, layering CMYK colour separations to reframe her photographs with depth and complexity, while text references Catholic philosophy and its enduring presence in her life.
More recently, Ciara draws inspiration from Renaissance sculpture, particularly its ability to convey emotion and movement through stone. Just as Renaissance art shifted from religious doctrine toward human experience, her practice has moved from strict ritual toward personal exploration. In her photographs, a figure draped in wet silk moves through choreographed poses of resistance and perseverance. The soft, flowing fabric stands in stark contrast to the permanence of marble, echoing the conflict between fragility and endurance in diasporic traditions. These images reflect on the legacy of Catholicism within post-war Irish immigration to Britain, and on the emotional weight of passing down beliefs across generations.
