Issue 35: Water by Jesse Sorrell | artwork by Sorcha McNamara

"An emerald sting in your eyes makes you shudder-blink. / Yellow is a lift of the sky. Red is the smoke of memory. / Green is the lung emerging from water. All you see is blue...."

Jul 17, 2024

Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you’d like your work to be considered for future issues.

Sorcha McNamara, *Bug-Eyed,* oil on reclaimed wood, 6.3 x 7.9 inches, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

Water by Jesse Sorrell | artwork by Sorcha McNamara

You are here.
The whales have been waiting.

You are swimming the heartbeat of the forest.
You are following the sound of water into a renaming.
Breath to river to ocean. Past to present to future. Liquid to solid to gas.

water is life

water is death

water is becoming

you are water

Read Water.

Jesse Sorrell writes to listen between physical and subtle form. He offers spiritual care in community-based, pediatric hospice & palliative care, bereavement, and other therapeutic settings. He lives surrounded by trees and animals in Chapel Hill, NC and is often found in water. His writing is thrilled to make home in KHÔRA.

Sorcha McNamara works as a painter, or more accurately as a maker of things. But even ‘maker’ isn’t really the right word. It’s too organic, too suggestive of the handmade, or the nobility of a craft. Instead, she is more of a conductor, a composer — the person in front of the orchestra waving their arms about, whose function and purpose you may question, but you know they are important for the stability of the whole piece.

Based in the West of Ireland, Sorcha holds an MA in Art + Research Collaboration from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology (2024), and a BA in Painting from Limerick School of Art & Design (2019). Her works have been exhibited in Ireland and internationally, in Tokyo, Lisbon and London. She has previously been selected for residencies at Totaldobze Art Centre, Riga (supported by Ormston House, Limerick and the Artist-Run Network Europe project, 2022); JOYA AiR, Almeria (2022); Tangent Projects, Barcelona (2021); and PADA Studios, Lisbon (2020). Her practice is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.