I primarily work with photography, installation and the moving image, often working with gendered experiences. My work engages with a haptic approach - using the close-up and movement to work with touch and experience through the lens. I have developed a stronger relationship to the immediacy of an embodied approach; to the history of feminism(s) and it’s experimental methods; to movement and performance and the relevance of experimenting and deviating from the rules of perspective set by a privileged Western Canon. I twist and turn, swim, walk, and work with fragmentation and materiality. Recently my practice is becoming increasingly collaborative – operating through conversations, images, and texts to work with feminist revisions of historical narratives. I’m interested in an investigation of intersectional viewpoints and voices to disrupt the dominance of a singular dominant gaze. These ideas manifest by experimentation with phenomena, reclaiming perilous spaces through movement, walking, swimming, fragmentation and cutting. In order to disrupt the smooth surface of the photograph I fold and layer, creating slippages between conscious and unconscious modes of perception and making.
Education 2015 PhD Fine Art Media – The National College of Art and Design, Dublin 2009 MA Documentary Photography, The University of South Wales 2004 BA Fine Art Centre for Creative Arts and Media, Galway
Currently employed
Lecturer at Burren College of Art on BA photo &MFA programme, mentor for artist residents Lecturer at National University of Ireland, Galway. Adult Education: Art History Chairperson Board of Directors, Engage Art Studios, Galway
Artist Talks Belfast Photography Festival Platform Arts, Belfast Belfast Exposed Gallery Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Perlman Teaching Museum, Minnesota, USA Burren College of Art The Gallery of Photography The National College of Art and Design, Dublin Creative School of Arts and Media, Galway Limerick Institute of Technology Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media, Dublin Galway Arts Centre
Awards 2021 Agility Award, Arts Council, Ireland 2020 Visual Arts Bursary Award, Arts Council Ireland 2020 Galway City Arts Office bursary - Centre Culturel Irlandais residency 2019 Individual Artists bursary, Galway City Council 2018 Nominated by EVA international for ‘Magic Carpets’ - a Creative Europe initiative which is commissioning new work from emerging Irish artists. 2017 Visual Arts Bursary Award, Arts Council Ireland 2016 Individual Artists Award, Galway City Council 2013 First Prize - Claremorris Open Exhibition, Andrew Wilson curator of contemporary art at Tate Britain 2013 Arts Council Travel and Training Award 2012 and 2014 2013 Individual Artists Awards, Galway County Council (2009,2011,2013) 2013 Nominated: Prix Pictet Award 2012 Shortlisted for EVA International, Limerick 2009 Shortlisted for Gallery of Photography Artists award, Dublin 2006 Shortlisted for Gallery of Photography Artists award, Dublin 2004 Student of the year award 2004 Creative School of Arts and Media, Galway
Residencies 2021 Centre Culturel Irlandais 2018 Mothership Satellite Residency at Cow House Studios 2017:Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig 2015-16: The Irish Museum of Modern Art 2014: The Creative School of Arts and Media, Galway 2012: Galway Arts Centre, Galway 2012: Basic Space at The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2011: Ard Bia Gallery, Berlin 2010: Crossing the Border Bridging the Gap,Kidsown Pubishing Partnership. Sligo
Exhibitions and screenings 2023 This Rural, The Mill, Lismore Castle Arts Whistling in the Dark, solo show at Galway Arts Centre for Galway International Arts Festival Whistling Brigit, Culture File (radio program).
2022 Bones in the Attic, Hugh Lane Gallery, August 2022 Images Are All We Have, PhotoIreland Festival & Photobook presentation, July 2022 Engage Studios Members Show, Galway international Arts Festival, July 2022 Galway Emerges, Kenny Gallery, Galway International Arts Festival, July 2022 A Woman Walks Alone With a Camera, photobook Launch, Engage Art Studios, June 2022 photobook launch, Photo Museum, Ireland, May 2022 Belfast Exposed Gallery - photobook launch/ Street View Exhibition, March 2022
2021 Lightly, Lightly, Faculty exhibition, Burren College of Art Gallery and NUIG Staff Club The Littoral Flâneuses, Engage Art Studios Gallery TULCA Festival of Visual Arts’ UnSelfing Programme -Arts, A Visit, A Ceremony A Gift, collaborative film. Solas Nua, Washington, View Source, presented by Fallow Media - Πανδώρα an audio visual collaboration
2020 Belfast Photography Festival XX XY, Landscapes Challenging Convention - talk and screening. I Know, But Only Just, a collaboration with Claire -Louise Bennet for Winter Papers vol.6 100 Views of Contemporary Ireland, The Library Project, Dublin Home Truths, Engage Art Studios Gallery BENCHMARK Project, Linnenhall Art Centre, Mayo
2019 Art as research, NUIG Staff Club, Galway Where you are lost we are Sidhe, Engage Studios Gallery Permission, Just Art It, Galway
2018 Narrating Self, Translating the Other, Galway Arts Centre The Fragmented Shore, Engage Art Studios Members show, for Cuirt festival of literature. Art of Protest, Galway International Arts Festival Material Conditions, Platform Arts, Belfast
2017 Nasty Women, Pallas Projects, Dublin. Engage, Gallery of Photography, Ireland Post-Picturesque Ireland, Rochester Art Center, Minnesota USA Post-Picturesque Ireland, Perlman Teaching Museum, Carleton College, Minnesota USA Interactions,Belfast Exposed Futures, group show Contact, NUIG Staff Club
2016
COE’16 New Century Retro – A Selection of COE Prizewinners Those who make art teach,Burren College of Art Gallery. Belfast Exposed Futures - Contact, solo show With each it is different and the same 2 x 2 - 126- Artist’s run Gallery, Galway Statecraft ARC M.A at Project Spaces, The Irish Museum of Modern Art (collaborative project)
2015 Belfast Exposed Futures, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris Photo Unfixed Landscape,The Burren College of Art Gallery (Solo) Townscape // Let me show you Tuam, Public Art Commission,Galway County Council Virtually There, Residency, Kidsown Publishing Partnership,Sligo
2014 Unfixed Landscape, Pallas Projects Dublin (Solo) The Family Album of Ireland’ - A Gallery of Photography Ireland project Restless,G126 members show, Galway Arts Festival July 2014 Unfixed Landscape,Galerie du Faouëdic, Lorient, France
2013 Autowalks Taking Note or The Curious Eye, National University of Ireland, Galway Art Gallery Moving Stills, Art, Place & Dislocation In The 21st Century City, 126 present Creative Time Live Stream, New York City Moving Stills,Clause four, a collection of work by artists critiquing the hierarchies of art institutions, Norwich, UK Moving Stills,Too Many Dinner Parties, The Shed & 126 Gallery, involving three curatorial projects by PS² (Belfast), Economic Thought Projects (Galway) and Paul Hallahan (SOMA) Illuminate, Galway Arts Centre Moving Stills,COE: Claremorris Open Exhibition
2012 Autowalks, Exiles, The Lab, Dublin Moving Stills,G126 Annual Members Show, G126, Galway Illuminate,Public Art Commission – Galway County Council Incredibly Close and Extremely Slow, Vondelbunker, Amsterdam, Netherlands Moving Stills, The Dock, Carrick on Shannon Co. Leitrim (solo exhibition) Project 30, Emerging Views of Ireland, Gallery of Photography, Dublin Undertow, The Lab, Dublin Other Madonnas, Watching the River Flow, Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra, Portugal 100 years of Photography at Newport, University of Wales, Newport Other Madonnas,The Dublin Art Book Fair, Templebar Gallery + Studios, Dublin Turlough Swim, Latency, Engage Art Studios Group Exhibition, The Linenhall Arts Centre, Co. Mayo Turlough Swim, #008000, Engage Art Studios Group Exhibition, The Shed, Galway Under the Counter Poster Collective, Niland Gallery, Galway Undertow, Ormston House, Limerick Visualising Utopia, Incredibly Close and Extremely Slow, Vondelbunker, Amsterdam Visualising Utopia, National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin Visualising Utopia, Feast of Fools, Live@8 Sligo edition, Trade Centre, Sligo
2009 Auto promenades, Tulca,Galway Arts Centre Exposure, Contemporary Photography CoExist Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK Insight, Sligo Art Gallery 2008 An Insiders View, Arles Festival of Contemporary Photography, Paris | Arles | Berlin | Dublin City of Ideas, Barons Storage The Space Between, Ffotogallery, Wales. UK
Conference papers 2019 Outcrops, getting out, getting in. Walking's New Movements, University of Plymouth 2015 Coolorta: re-imagining the landscape through artistic practice. Mind the Gap, symposium on practice based research in the arts, NCAD, Dublin. 2015Coolorta: re-imagining the landscape through artistic practice annual PhD Symposium, NCAD, Dublin. 2013 Autowalks, On-Walking, International multi-discplinary conference, University of Sunderland & The Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, UK. 2013Unfixed Landscape, Once Upon A Time In The West, a symposium with Sylvere Lotringer in association with 126 Gallery and Katherine Waugh. 2013 The PhD and The Studio: Sharing The Experience: What does it mean to do a PhD in Studio Art. The Burren College of Art. 2012 Visualizing Utopia, Incredibly Close and Extremely Slow, Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. 2011 Relating to the Gaze,PhotoIreland Festival.
Publications/ texts 2018 A Route into Practice Based Research, Visual Artist Ireland Platform Arts, Life on Land, The work of Steve McCullagh, commissioned text 2017 Portrait of Sally Rooney, commissioned by The New Yorker magazine 2016 Essay:Mind the Gap! Working papers on practice based doctoral research in the creative arts and media 2015 The Shadow of Doubt - introduction to M.A graduates exhibition, Burren College of Art 2014 Wallis (Family Album of Ireland) Vision magazine,China 2014 Autowalks,The Weary Blues, Ireland 2014 lluminate,publicart.ie 2013 Autowalks,Selected Essays On-Walking, The Univesity of Sunderland 2013 Illuminate –a conversation with Padraic E Moore/ Gerald Glynn and Ruby Wallis 2013 The Mountain, Super Massive Black Hole Magazine 2013 Digital Inclusion, Visual Artists Ireland Newsletter 2012 Unfixed Landscape, is it possible to define place through artistic practice?, Journal of Artistic Research, Bern, Switzerland 2012Moving Stills- reviewed by Vivienne Dick, Visual Artists Ireland 2009 Other Madonnas, The British Journal of Photography