MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

My work is concerned with ideas relating to outer space, physics and the fundamental forces controlling our universe. I’m captivated by the idea of gravitational waves moving through an expansive universe, through time, through us, through our planet. Only recently have we been able to detect the echoes of these vast forces and I feel this is a pivotal moment in the development of human knowledge and learning.

I’ve been inspired by scientific breakthroughs, by pop culture and science fiction, by images from my own spiritual upbringing and by the awe and wonder of images from distant worlds and points in space. I feel humbled to be able to witness the universe knowing that that is what I am made of and that that is what I will return to. In my work I hope to convey ideas of reverence, chaos and the material nature of temporal forces.

I’ve tried to illustrate the idea of gravitational waves in my work, I am particularly inspired by scientific breakthroughs that used LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) which uses lasers aligned over large distances to detect gravitational waves emanating from black holes and other celestial phenomena.

I’ve used a number of photographic techniques including macroscopic photography, a series of different lenses, photographing through lucite spheres and layers of old and warped glass to create a body of work that attempts to convey my own artistic interpretation of the universe and governing forces that control it. I’ve used textiles as a medium because of its materiality, its ability to fold, warp and stretch just like the fabrics of time and space.

Email: aaron.morrissey@mycit.ie

The theme of my work is survival and the primitive fight to support life in a dangerous environment.

Weeds are inspirational to my work as they simultaneously embody a sense of unease and awe; Japanese knotweed is infamous for being the most invasive non-native species in Ireland. However, I admire the strength and determination of this plant to break through concrete. Irish city-councils are determined to destroy every last plant with systemic herbicides, regardless of the health benefits associated with this plant in treating certain illnesses e.g. cognitive diseases, cardiovascular disease and promoting good digestive health. I find comfort in thinking that there is a weed fighting back. In a chaotic urban environment this supports the constant quest to maintain life.

I use waste glass bottles collected from pubs around the vicinity of the Crawford College; my interest in recycling waste glass served as a financial solution but turned into a creative endeavour. The incompatibilities between each waste glass bottle reminded me of the incompatibilities with every person in society. The stress and anxieties that we all experience is also experienced by the glass; these stresses are expressed by the cracks, the splits and the tears in the fused glass piece. If the fused glass represents society (confinement and incompatibility) then the weeds represent the sense of freedom that we can aspire to embody.

Email: eve92russell@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artbyeverussell/

Nature and human existence go through endless cycles. The line between creation and destruction is thin. The struggle between connections and disconnections is infinite. My work focuses on the depth of life through my personal experiences. Exploring and expressing my values and identity in this world, which seems to be so volatile. The unsettling relationship between protection and vulnerability becomes the core concept of my work.

Family connections are naturally my first encounter of identity and influences in life. The desire to become independent and be a part of tradition is perpetual. The pull of togetherness and separation is magnetic. Confucius quotes, ‘Our bodies - from each piece of hair to every inch of skin - are gifted to us from our mother and our father. By not harming or wounding them, this is the beginning of Filial Piety.’ Ancestral tradition is embedded in every individual, consciously or unconsciously, physically or non-physically, accepted or resisted. Just as expressions to your loved ones could be both earthly or ethereal.

The vision of protecting and nurturing a seed or an embryo marks the beginning of life and struggle. By incorporating found natural materials into porcelain, the clay instantly becomes more fragile and vulnerable. The rawness of clay highlights the texture and solidity of the form. The fragility and softness of silk and human hair reflect the delicacy and uncertainty of being. Each piece of hand knotted thread represents the inseparable tie of femininity and fertility in the family. The experience of creating is a reflection of that inner vulnerability and celebration of hope.

Email: jenisynyu@yahoo.co.uk, jennifer.ng@mycit.ie

Fleece‌ ‌to‌ ‌Fiber‌ ‌

Memory‌ ‌and‌ ‌Nostalgia‌ ‌are‌ ‌a‌ ‌big‌ ‌part‌ ‌of‌ ‌my‌ ‌work‌ ‌in‌ ‌my‌ ‌decision‌ ‌to‌ ‌explore‌ ‌the‌ ‌fleece‌ ‌as‌ ‌it‌ ‌comes‌ ‌from‌ ‌the‌ ‌sheep.‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

The‌ ‌fleece‌ ‌that‌ ‌is‌ ‌shorn‌ ‌off‌ ‌the‌ ‌sheep‌ ‌still‌ ‌retains‌ ‌many‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌animate‌ ‌properties‌ ‌it‌ ‌had‌ ‌while‌ ‌still‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌sheep.‌ ‌The‌ ‌structure‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌lock‌ ‌still‌ ‌retains‌ ‌its‌ ‌integrity.‌ ‌It’s‌ ‌colour‌ ‌doesn’t‌ ‌fade‌ ‌with‌ ‌time,‌ ‌the‌ ‌crimp‌ ‌remains‌ ‌intact‌ ‌until‌ ‌further‌ ‌processing‌ ‌takes‌ ‌place.‌ ‌

These‌ ‌processes‌ ‌translate‌ ‌the‌ ‌fleece‌ ‌into‌ ‌many‌ ‌other‌ ‌materials,‌ ‌unspun‌ ‌it‌ ‌can‌ ‌be‌ ‌felted‌ ‌and‌ ‌moulded,‌ ‌spun‌ ‌it‌ ‌can‌ ‌be‌ ‌knotted‌ ‌and‌ ‌knitted‌ ‌and‌ ‌woven‌ ‌and‌  ‌wool‌ ‌fibres‌ ‌lend themselves‌ ‌particularly‌ ‌well‌ ‌to‌ ‌dyeing.‌ ‌

Memories‌ ‌of‌ ‌learning‌ ‌to‌ ‌knit‌ ‌at‌ ‌a‌ ‌young‌ ‌age‌ ‌are‌ ‌bound‌ ‌up‌ ‌within‌ ‌the‌ ‌ball‌ ‌of‌ ‌wool,‌ ‌and‌ ‌crocheted‌ ‌together‌ ‌holding‌ ‌the‌ ‌spirits‌ ‌of‌ ‌those‌ ‌who‌ ‌taught‌ ‌me.‌ ‌ Nostalgia‌ ‌seeps‌ ‌through‌ ‌it‌ ‌now‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌have‌ ‌revisited‌ ‌the‌ ‌spinning‌ ‌wheel‌ and‌ ‌the‌ ‌fibre‌ ‌that‌ ‌has‌ ‌served‌ ‌us‌ ‌so‌ ‌well‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌past‌ ‌and‌ ‌is‌ ‌being‌ ‌repurposed‌ ‌anew‌ ‌by‌ ‌a‌ ‌new‌ ‌generation.‌

Email: hewetsonj@gmail.com‌ ‌

I work in glass, textiles and ceramics.

For this current body of work my focus is the submersion of a local village in 1956 to facilitate the building of two dams. The human impact of this event was never addressed. Through my work I aim to give these displaced people and victims of Domicide a voice and create a memorial to them.  All of this work is in the medium of glass. Photographs drive the creative process. I am mixing my own photographs with some borrowed and found images. I digitally manipulate these for the desired effect. The photographs are printed and fired onto glass. I’m using glass as a metaphor for water as the translucent quality lends itself well to the idea of a memory captured and frozen in time.

I want to create tension between surface and depth, where place and placelessness merge.

By juxtaposing past with present, I am using the photographs as a kind of fossil or cast of what once was. They lay claim to another reality. The images act both as a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. It is life as it was, submerged, in plain sight. The water hides a narrative within.

I am using windows for my current work as a portal, their frames mediate between outside and inside space, under and over water. They are a site of communication between two worlds. Windows provide various views, simultaneously on the one plane.

Email: murpat50@gmail.com

Website: http://artbymariahealyart.wordpress.com

My artwork is about the significance of an object and how that object can have such an impact with an emotional connection toward the body and the mind. Some of the things we own can own us, and their vulnerabilities become inseparable from our existence and through this, the object reminds you of a place, or a time in your life. It’s these feelings that are kept buried inside our own experience of living, and objects become the triggers and markers that remind us. For me to produce these artworks, I have interviewed several people throughout my research, but I am mostly focused on three certain areas, which has given me the understanding of how important something from a little stone to a clothing material can have a huge impact on a human life. The objects that I have been developing into my body of work are ‘The Chair’, ‘The old dolls' and ‘The Shoes’. It is the connection towards that object and what emotional response they have towards that object that give its significance from each other.

My aim is to show that a single object has a powerful message that's hidden within. With the information that I have gathered from all the different responses, I then created an emotional impression of the three objects and interpreted through my own art practice. I became inspired by the way Doris Salcedo, Alison Lowry and Christian Boltanski represented the victims and made a very powerful response contributing to the loss. Taking from them, my own experience reminds me of the time when my grandfather passed, and I had given him a teddy bear dog a few years prior when he became sick. This teddy bear he would keep by his side all the time in memory of me, and on the day of the funeral I saw the teddy bear in his coffin as he requested. It is comforting me knowing that he has a part of me with him and I have a part of him with me.

The connection between the memory and the object has a very personal and emotional impact on my work. The reason for working with memories is to represent all that we have or had to leave behind, but is not forgotten. The experience of our memories is so intertwined with language, and because of this I am exploring the importance of the words and stories. I believe that everyone has a story to tell.  

Stories become our compass by which we navigate through our memories and discover our core beings of what matters to every one of us.

Email: nicole.thomas@mycit.ie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolethomasart_design/

Growing up I found communication extremely difficult. I had a very pronounced lisp as a child, and spent several years in speech therapy. In addition I am extremely dyslexic, which leads me to having a fascination with communication and understanding and a strong desire to express myself.

Mathematics is a beautifully delicate instrument, which we have used like a crude tool to express the complex nature of the physical world through brute force. While we are always trying to comprehend reality’s vast complexity in a binary form, we miss the finesse of analogue information. This is why fractal mathematics caught my attention, as it suggests that nothing is measurable, as everything has infinite detail. I find mathematics is a simple way to communicate complex information visually and without the use of text or words.

I have attempted to limit my control over the drawing through the implementation of a simplistic devise. It consisted of a pencil and a fidget spinner making a rudimentary gyro. The lines from a distance resemble chaos, but upon closer inspection a complex order can be observed. To attempt to draw attention to this dichotomy of order and chaos I paired fluid drawings with rigid and structured glass sculpture. There is a tension captured between these two, which mirrors that of humans and natural structures. I hope that will inspire people to reimagine what math means to them, it’s not just numbers and calculations but a way to interpret our surroundings.

Inspirations:

Fractal mathematics is built on the principle of taking a segment and repeating it infinitely to create fathomless details, one of the core examples is the Mandelbrot set f_c (z) =z²+c. Nuala O'Donovan’s sculptures based on the geometry of natural forms and fractal patterns and Junko Mori’s hand-forged metal sculptures which are also organic in nature, have inspired me to experiment with a simple aspect or process. By using my limited understanding of engineering I was able to use a fidget spinner and pencil as a drawing gyroscope.

In culmination with my research and developed work I was also inspired by a visit to the Venice Biennale and Glasstress. I was taken by the scale and scope of the work presented and how much being able to participate in something can not only engage but inspire, educate and most importantly continue and grow this concept of the never ending infinity of all things. Inspired by Karen La Monte I created an interactive space to combine the concept of infinity with other complexities of what it is to create without the limitations and anxiety that go along with being watched. A safe and interactive space allows for a person to feel the freedom to play. I am interested to see how this plays out on a social level. This allows my work to evolve and perfectly demonstrates the dichotomy between simplicity and complexity.

Email: ossin.hanrahan@mycit.ie, ossinhanrahan1992@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ossinhanrahan/

Phone: 0862495612

My work explores the themes of decay, opulence, mortality and the transience of life through the symbols of Vanitas in 16th and 17th century still lifes. Titled from the Latin for vanity, these paintings served as a form of momento mori: a reminder of death and the impermanence of human life. Compositions often comprised of skulls and dead birds, symbols of both human and animal mortality, including decomposing fruit as symbols of opulence and decay. Books, wine bottles, and watches amongst many other manmade objects represent signs of human achievements and pursuits that only hold value within human life.

In a contemporary context, these motifs take on added meaning. Through the inescapable awareness of climate change, these bones, both animal and human, become not only reminders of individual death, but momento mori of the extinction of entire species. Calling to mind our current and projected loss of biodiversity and its effect on human survival.

Images of rotting fruit, now highlight the opulence and abundance of our time, leading to wastefulness and excess, and the resulting failures of crops and plant species in a changing climate. The carbon emissions that have provided us with luxury and surplus, now causing the rising temperatures that are making land arid and infertile.

Taking moulds from organic and non-organic forms of motifs found in the paintings, I then cast them in clear glass, giving them a transparent and ephemeral appearance. Existing in clear glass, they do not appear as substantial through colour and familiarity as their actual counterparts, highlighting their lack of permanence. The glass fruits show a timeline of decay, each one holding an impression of a stage in their existence.

The larger pieces impress upon the viewer the scale and looming reality of the issues they represent, rendering them impossible to ignore.

Smaller glass objects are arranged carefully in a curio cabinet, as if an attempt to preserve and cherish the states and elements of life they represent.

Email: ruth.phelan@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruth_phelane/

In my work I explore the themes of absence and loss through a visual investigation around touch, memory and communication using the power of cloth, thread, wire, needles and stitch.  I explore the notion of touch and connectedness, language and understanding, engagement with and isolation from our world.  I am drawn to these as a means of expression because of their tactile quality and their historic connections across all peoples, societies and cultures.

Email: sallymhewetson@gmail.com, sally.hewetson@mycit.ie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sally.hewetson/

Phone: 0874118039

This work is exploring colonialism and its effects on the indigenous people of a country. The work uses images and icons of countries like Africa, India, and South America, to give a stamp of a country’s identity and culture to the paintings and to try and describe colonialism. The work also takes in the commodities the colonizers were looking for: gold, diamonds, oil, ore and metals to name just a few.

The paintings also explore the third space theory - the past, the present and future, and what the scholar Homi K Bhabia called “Hybridity”, where local people of a country take on the customs, traditions, and fashions of the colonizers, and blend them with their own, in a type of mimicry. The paintings look at the colonization of Africa, India and Ireland.

Different mediums were used in these paintings; acrylic and oil paint, silkscreen prints, and felt tip pens were the main mediums used. The paintings are large measuring approximately 2 x 1.8 metres. 

Phone: 0894179362

My ideas stem from my interest in the areas of art therapy because of the relation between art and therapy and to create a visual form of language that doesn’t rely on one language; which then makes it a universal means of communication. That’s why I have introduced mathematics and geometric forms into my practice. My studio practice has been mostly printmaking and working in 3D, because of the correlation between the two; both areas look closer into the materiality of what they are working with. I believe that the material you work with brings connotation of its original purpose and is something that should be thought of and embraced.

BlakeBlakely10@gmail.com, Blake.Blakely@mycit.ie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/b.blakelyfineart/  

YouTube: Blake Blakely

Every person is like a thread in life's great tapestry, interwoven by incident and choice. The work is concerned with the organisation of people into groups for spiritual healing. In people’s efforts to attain inner peace, what do they really gain and what is it they lose?

I use the transparent and fluid-like quality of paint to represent the texture of figures together and materials that have been weaved.

Referencing: Greek and Roman Myth such the three fates and the bundled fasces. The pattern of a weaved material is similar to that of a ritual-like moment of participation in the intermingling of individuals into a collective.

Email: Conor79cleary@gmail.com

Phone: 0862059636

I’m a figurative painter working primarily in oils and charcoal. I also work with collage and create mixed media sculptures, as they provide me with a range of references.

Thematically the work is anchored to the characters and situations found in mythological stories, specifically Irish mythology. My work attempts to explore the great human questions, about what exists beyond what we see, about morality, about what connects all of us, about our vulnerabilities and our capacity for love and violence. 

The work predicates the universal nature of folklore, religion and mythology, and attempts to highlight the thread that links them together.

Email: dforde.art@gmail.com

Phone: 0877576062

The work is rooted in a phenomenological investigation into the experience of the individual in a man-made environment and their relation to the natural through this prism. Through direct engagement with the work, I hope to create a space for philosophical engagement between this duality - the man-made and nature. This investigation culminated in a body of five paintings and a two-way dyptich, which is is created with the ability to be shown in either vertical or horizontal format.

Email: deirdre_frost@yahoo.com

Website: deirdrefrost.com

Target Practice

Within the borders of these three pieces lies a discerning truth. Through ideas of disconnect and fracture, a familiar story is told; a personal chronicle is unearthed.

Through the practice of photolithography and collage, both physical and digital, elements of an identity past and present arebraided together with strands of emotive honesty. Combining the definitive role of soldier and woman, and rooting them in a place of context, each of these pieces lay bare a reality of femininity at war in the workplace.

Drawing from history, news and personal experience, every piece on display is glossed with an understanding of how femininity can be the target regardless of what world, what rank.  At the center of this work hides a knot of scorn, growth and pride.

The story told here hides no shadows and enhances no brights. This is the story of the patriarchal war forever being fought and conquered by the feminine dynamism.

Email: hmtlbrien@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xrmilkrx/

My practice focuses on the exploration of the connection between people and our surrounding landscapes, particularly in times of transition or uncertainty. My work aims to explore the tentative, limbo-like experience of being between places, being in no man’s land in regards to being uprooted or longing the place you call home. These feelings towards resettlement and placelessness aim to relate to wider concerns of displacement, movement and migration. The work aims to look at physical borders within the landscape as a metaphor for being in no man’s land, being transitory, and aims to investigate the push and pull between permanence and impermanence.

Perceiving place as shifting and fragmented, the work aims to explore an uncertainty in site and situation through dismantling and disrupting landscape imagery through various printmaking processes and using visual languages and aspects of geography and cartography throughout. As an exploration into the transitory landscape, the work aims to speak about the duality of being in transition of leaving the place you call home, and crossing that psychological and physical borderline between two spaces. Through these works, I aim to disrupt the reading of the landscape and of home as a fixed place or state, to question the idea of home as a geographically locatable and physically delineated space.

Email: Jadelauryn968@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jade_lauryn/

The work at present is an insight into my own self-contemplation on my place as a queer person and performer. Through my work I hope to highlight and examine my own conflicts with modern perceptions of perfection/idealisation that are perpetuated in contemporary queer spaces. The work as it stands presents itself as a series of life sized tableaux vivant video performances. The videos aim to highlight the movement that occurred throughout the performance to try and show the frailty of perceptions of perfection. The video is accompanied by a series of nine photographic close up shots of my made up face in its various forms.

Email: Liam.kelleher@mycit.ie

My work utilises performance, sculpture, and text to interrogate questions surrounding the contemporary labourer.  The adoption of methods such as appropriation and assemblage seek to examine changes occurring in workers' labour processes. The term ‘precarity’ is integral to the work, this refers to all forms of flexible, contingent, and insecure employment. It focuses on managerial practice and project work in order to assess issues concerning the omnipresence of public relations in which symbols of productivity, the performance of engagement and coerced self-realisation have taken precedence.

A precarious worker is frequently expected to expose potential values that are deemed useful by the market which subjects them to a state of experimental precariousness as they find themselves assuming an indefinite role that lacks an occupational identity. The proliferation of endlessly wide umbrella terms such as managerialism and project work offer numerous possibilities yet fails to differentiate between them. This exemplifies the disappearance of specificity in contemporary labour in which the modern-day worker is characterized by burn-out experiences, work-life imbalance, and a general lack of time. The materiality of the work attempts to articulate the notion of experimental precariousness by locating each element within the ‘work-in-progress’ – a parallel temporality committed to working towards an undetermined horizon. This intends to initiate a conversation surrounding the trajectory of a precarious person who is often unable to know anything about their own future.

Email: lily.oshea.art@gmail.com

Tel. 0830452832

Website: https://lilyoshea.wordpress.com/

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/lilyoshea

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilyoshea__/

The work is a record of my utopian imagination about common weeds in the urban environment, offering visual balance between the overwhelming mass of concrete and greenery of ugly plants. Abandoned nooks of cities, covered with debris and sediment, railway sidings, ditches filled with polluted water, where the only form of life are weeds. It is never clear whether we are looking at natural processes or at the results of man-made catastrophe. This is an attempt to emphasize that the concept of a weed makes sense only in relation to people. These unwanted plants have become an indispensable part of the urban landscape and, although undesirable, they are benefitting the ecosystem. My work offers a visual hybrid referring to a human’s relationship with his urban surroundings, the utopian make up for future balance.

Email: longinka@gmail.com

Website: www.longinawentrys.com

The Theme of my Work is to show the unnecessary use of animals by humans and how humans impact on the lives of animals either directly or indirectly. I have chosen to paint small scale pictures of animals of varied species in different circumstances using watercolour paint on paper. I feel that watercolour is more expressive especially when painting animals.The scale of the picture makes the viewer move closer to see the images.

Email: mariebeckeranne@gmail.com

My art practice is based on concepts and ideas of the dark side of humanity that has always existed. I am also interested in how these ideas are represented in silent era movies. The subject matter from these films were the initial source of influence that I started to develop in my practice. My work is directly inspired by gothic aesthetics and historical influences, as I am very interested in the old and forgotten art forms.

My work includes various drawings, prints and paintings that capture the melancholy of humanity, and sense of isolation due to different circumstances. These concepts firstly developed from silent era movies and later progressed to the exploration of Victorian photography of people, and a personal impulse to paint and draw them as theatrical characters. My most recent work portrays people around me that are photographed and then painted as characters from this bygone era of cinema.

Email:dejanovicmarina@yahoo.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marina.dejanovic.art/

Around the world, large, multinational corporations process limited, naturally occurring plants and materials into profitable commodities for sale. Within Ireland, a recent popular target for this practice is seaweed. Rich in vitamins and nutrients, readily available and free, seaweed is incredibly appealing to the capitalist market. Masked by compelling advertisements and design, manipulative words and desirable products, unsustainable and exploitative industrial seaweed harvesting practices are slipping past consumers’ awareness undetected.

Non appétit presents a pop-up culinary experience, led by a satirical Irish seaweed cookbook. The cookbook aims to imitate, and, in doing so, critique, products sold by conglomerates involved in these exploitative seaweed-harvesting practices. The function of non appétit is to take on a business and corporate aesthetic, using the very language multinationals use to sell their product in order to undermine them. Complimenting the “sale” of the cookbook, the non appétit experience also includes inanimate workshop tables, QR codes, artificial food scent and merchandise. Creating a sense of emptiness in the space, the installation aims to embody the absence of concern or accountability taken by large corporations and to present the reality behind seaweed harvesting to the viewer.

Email: meoleary2016@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_nonappetit/

My work centres around issues of domestic abuse in Ireland towards women and men alike while focusing on the stigma that exists around male victims as a result of societal norms; such as toxic masculinity.

The bright colours of my images are symbolic of the outward appearance of what domestic relationships may look like to an outsider, while the actual narrative is more obvious. Using colour theory, I aim the evoke certain emotions and feelings that may contradict the context of the images; it’s this juxtaposition that creates the visual tension to the viewer.

I’ve taken a commercial approach to not only the creation of the individual pieces, but the entire installation itself – this is a comment of media-representation, or more lack of, to the issue of domestic abuse within Ireland. Some of these pieces are influenced by real-life stories of domestic abuse victims – through the visual language of colour theory, metaphor, body language, expression, make-up and text, I seek to emphasize details of the relationship between abuser and victim.

Email: matthiggsartist@hotmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthiggsartist/

My work at the moment surrounds the topic of female shame. Women are being constantly judged on things, such as what we wear and how we behave on a day-to-day basis. We are also shamed for how our bodies look and derogatory terms are constantly being used on us, also known as slut-shaming. My aim is to reclaim the female body as something that is powerful and bold, rather than an object for the male gaze and such other judgements.

Through the medium of photography, I am the director of the work and the subject. I write slogans on to my body, almost as a means of protest against people’s experiences with female shame as well as my own. I am naked in my photos as to show the rawness of my body. I attempt to put across a radical and aggressive tone, as to show that enough is enough when it comes to shaming women.

Email: Meganw137@gmail.com

The paintings are spliced to visualize the delay before a transfer of data and in this case before and during the introduction of human life.

Rendered in thinly applied layers of oil and working from manipulated images in Photoshop, the work is inspired by the idea of Arcadia, latency when transferring data and re-forestation.

A take on Arcadia as paradise, without people nature begins reclaiming land once occupied by civilisation. Trees represent the sublime, displaying the dualities between nature and man-made objects whereas the inclusion of isolated monuments and digital latency act as a human signature on the images.

Drawing inspiration from artists such as Matthew Monahan, Cecilia Edefalk, Paul Nash and Ernest Ludwig Kirchner, the works main goal is to paint a portrait of humans in their absence.

Email: mfaos92@hotmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irishwhiskeyyart/

This triptych video installation sweeps the landscape and semi-derelict house of my childhood. This three-channel piece is about a homesickness for a home which you cannot return to, the degradation of memory as I slowly drift further away from the memory of what it was like as a child. By echoing the different shots over each other, ebbing and flowing different pieces of a puzzle together of inside and outside with familiarity of some of the shots and an inescapable unknowing of others.

This degradation is mirrored within the land itself, as well as the house appearing as a shell of what it once was, so too has the land has become overgrown and unkempt as rampant childhood memory’s or truths half-remembered.

The overarching soundscape is comprised of Banjo and vocals from my father and stretched over time to mirror the twisting of space.

Email: nelliejeancorbett@gmail.com

The work depicts farm scenery, the objects and buildings which occupy this space; sheds, gates, machinery, empty sites absent of people. A new seat on an old tractor, a roughly stacked hay shed, tools propped up against wooden palettes and a hose winding around a concrete yard.

Every farm setting is varied and personal to that individual place, the distinctiveness of the painted medium helps to create an individualism, reflecting the particular

characteristics personal to each farm. Paint application also indicates the manual labour conducted in these spaces, decisive marks and accidental indents which occur both in the painting and this landscape.

Everyday scenery opened to the viewer, a lack of people which invites the viewer to have a private moment, to become immersed in the atmosphere of the farm, to reflect on this environment. 

These scenes show a realism of farming, an inclusion of all that it is. The mundanity and stillness are true representation of this life, but with all its roughness and the messiness of the farm is not without intimacy of quiet corners.

Email: Nicola.o.shea@hotmail.com

Through my work I want the viewer to question their reality through their own perception. I believe that it is necessary for people to question their surroundings and how they perceive it and my work aims to shine a light on how what the viewer may perceive as reality can be changed and altered.

I believe Reality is as frail as what we can perceive and if I can show how much our perception of something that isn’t moving or changing can be altered, then reality might seem less definite.

The idea of unseen elements has been within scientific theory for centuries and my research focuses on many theories that embrace the existence of an accessible dimension above what we can understand. These theories include Edwin A. Abbott’s novel Flatland, which is a visualisation of how 2 dimensional shapes would experience 3 dimensions, opening a door for possible 4-dimensional experiences.

These also include Charles Hinton’s ideas of seeing a 4^th dimension when you supress your knowledge of reality, Henri Poincare’s writings of an unseen ether making up our reality. Einstein’s theory of special relativity refuted many of these theories, so I am attempting to visualise these as they are more accessible through the visual mind than many more contemporary theories.

Email: philipwilliams26@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philwilliams_visualartist/ 

I have always been drawn to questions that explore the complexities of life.  In my work I don't know if I want to be happy today  I have turned my focus to adolescent girls, their relationship to oneself and the world at large.

Email: sanda.galina@gmail.com

Website: https://www.sandagalina.com/

The airport as a non-place, carries a sense of transience, personal anxiety and the feeling of being in-limbo. For a lot of people those feelings fluctuate within the space as they undergo a restrained scrutinization process to allow them to travel.

My work aims to convey idea of contemporary migration, globalization and travel. My own personal experiences, in particular the journeys I took while travelling from Poland to Ireland as a young child and to this day, serve as a source of inspiration. I attempt to develop a relationship between the consistent and recurring journeys of a migrant and the airport acting as a vessel to allow for that linking of the two worlds.

My work aims to engulf the viewer with an erratic visual energy, installed as an installation the elements of expanded print are to encourage audience interaction. I choose to display my work through methods which take inspiration from the airport itself, as to me, the element of being at the scene of a controlled environment and a sense of fear of the unknown and being out of your comfort zone is the best way to generate direct emotions of a modern day migrant. ,

Email: sandrapyka@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandrapykart/, https://www.instagram.com/pcddiva_mua/

My research explores installation in large scale in order to activate the spectator as subject.  My current work is a dialectic, contrasting the handmade with the industrial, the natural with the mechanical.  Ideas of obsolescence coexist with the progressive.  A chaotic bricolage of objects, both naturally occurring and mass-produced.  And VHS tape: sights and sounds, somehow captured, the phenomenon of perception on magnetic tape.  I'm inspired by ideas of the metaphysical, by the potential of the mind to be imaginative, and ideological, empirical and irrational.  The human mind that could conceive of the advancements of the scientific and industrial revolutions and the influence these ideas have on the individual and society today. 

selenaosullivan@gmail.com

I am interested in how the effects of digital time and virtual space manifest in real life. Cyberspace offers
immediate and addictive interactivity. A tap on a screen opens a tailored reality, curated by algorithms built from
user’s every key-stroke. All of this data is traded in the lucrative market created by surveillance capitalism.

Screens of every size command our attention. By using multiple projected images, I aim to make the individual
online activity a shared experience. I try to examine our relationship with digital technology and the blurring of the ‘real’ with the ‘fake’. I illustrate the ways in which technology shapes an emerging visual language that reflects how we connect, what we say and why.

The issues arising from the Web are similar to other addictions such as gambling machines, so I’ve tried to portray a funfair ambience, with the swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune.

Email: oddtoot@hotmail.com

In my work I tend to deal with themes of decay, alienation, and anxiety while attempting to create similar emotions in the audience, often relying on showing ideas/image that contrast with each other.

I primarily work with moving image and sound. I tend to have two strands in my work - one is slow and contemplative, often documenting unpredictable chaotic processes such as the textures of urban decay; the other is more abrasive, fast paced, rhythmic, and are usually found footage based collage pieces with editing inspired by musical timings.

I feel these two approaches work together to create a bi-polar contrast, almost auto-immune in the way that they push against each other.

Three channel video combines layers of looped video and sound at slightly different speeds so that every repetition is slightly different enabling each repetition is similar but unique.

Email: t23boyle@gmail.com