Catriona Gallagher is a British born artist who has been living in Athens for the past two years. Her practice is a daily rhythm of observing the physical environment around her, reading patterns and recurrences in architecture as silent histories narrating overlooked ideologies. Her work plays with scale in mapping, recording and tracing, in turn producing drawings, writings, video and sculptural interventions. These collectively conjure a world of intensified focus, weaving narratives and symbols through the places we inhabit to refract social, economic and political histories manifested physically. Studying plants and their relationship to architecture is a recurring tool in her work; four particular ‘weeds’ have been studied over several years including the Elder tree in England and the herb pellitory (περδικἀκι) in Greece. The two-year-long study of περδικἀκι growing in urban Athens draws together historical, social and botanical research alongside semi-fictional characters and narratives, building a story of the plant’s long life in the city.
