I’m pleased to share the publication of a major research paper from Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, published this week in Nature Neuroscience.
The study demonstrates that infants as young as two months old already show rich, category-specific visual organisation in the brain — a finding that reshapes how we think about the origins of perception and cognition.
During this project, I was Artist in Residence at TCIN, working alongside the researchers as an observer. The experience of witnessing the methodologies, images and conceptual frameworks around early visual categorisation directly informed a new body of painting and image-based work.
These artworks emerged in parallel to the research, reflecting on questions of perception before language, pattern recognition, and the formation of meaning at the very earliest stages of life.
Congratulations to Dr Cliodhna O'Doherty, Prof Rhodri Cusack and all the team in TCIN on a remarkable publication, and sincere thanks to everyone in the institute for the generosity of access and dialogue that made this artistic work possible.
Research paper HERE: Nature Neuroscience (2025)
Zero is an Even Number