COLM MOLLOY OAK TREE PRINT

This piece was developed for my visual poem Gearr which drew an allegory between the clearing of Ireland's oak forests for farming and the cultural erasure of Ireland by successive waves of normative colonialism.

Oak trees are incredibly resilient and can go dormant for years if their environment becomes inhospitable, only to bloom again when things get better. If they are cut down or struck by lightning, the roots live on, and a new tree will grow in time. The queer community often have to dim our shine or play dead just to survive, but we keep growing and, in good times, blooming