She was originally born in Somerset, UK, and lived in Ireland for 25 years. She finished her bachelor’s degree in 2010 at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Her course was based on a small rural island off the southern coast of Ireland called Sherkin Island. During and after her bachelor’s, she worked for 15 years in a public contemporary art gallery in Ireland (West Cork Arts Centre) before coming to Kelowna.
Trim’s main medium of expression is rooted in drawing but employs other mediums as well: “I work with what I call expanded drawing practice. It’s drawing beyond what most people would think about when you say drawing. I work quite large-scale, and the drawing is at the core of everything I do. But very often it also involves an installation of some kind or collage and photography and film; even projection onto the drawing. All those things have come into my practices at different times. But it revolves around drawing.”
Her love for art started at a young age and has continued throughout her life: “I always wanted to do something with the arts from a young age. I left school at 16 to go to a college to do an art foundation course. So even at that stage I knew that was what I wanted to do. I worked with crafts and textiles for a while; more craft-based than fine arts. Life drawing was always a thread that kept going all the way through even when I wasn’t involved in anything else, I would always do life drawing. I’ve never really been a painter; it’s always been drawing-based.”
Currently, Trim is exploring charcoal rubbings, specifically those of trees damaged by the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire. She has been investigating the Myra Bellevue trees, and creating rubbings from the charcoal that is still embedded in the trees themselves on large rolls of paper.
Trim self-describes her work as being an investigation of the landscape and of the practice of drawing itself: “The work is really about two things. It’s about engaging with the landscape and about the actual act of drawing. Presence for me is an important thing both in terms of the land and in terms of the artwork. You can’t have a relationship with the land if you don’t go out and engage with the land. And this work, in particular, is about process and fire moving through the land. Every time we move, we leave a trace. When I first came here I was very interested in the trails out in the parks and the idea that in moving through, you’re reinforcing that trail. Everything we do leaves a trace. And drawing is basically an extension of that. A movement, a gesture that leaves a mark behind it. I’m equating that movement through the land and the movement of the fire through the land to the act of drawing as a physical presence that leaves a mark and changes things. But also with the fire, it’s a rejuvenating thing. It does damage but it’s also an essential part of the process of the forest.”
Trim’s main inspirations include Ireland-based artists such as Dorothy Cross, Alice Maher and Brian Fay. More of her work can be seen on her website and Instagram. Her upcoming exhibition, Still, they are speaking will be shown in the FINA Gallery at UBC Okanagan from March 16 – 27, 2020.
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