biography exhibtions reviews

biography /About

About

Ruby Wallis often works with gendered experiences through photography, installation and moving image. She engages in a haptic way, using the close-up to simulate touch and direct experience through the lens. Her work focuses on the immediacy of an embodied approach. She twists and turns, working with fragmentation, shadows, and materiality. Her practice is becoming increasingly collaborative, operating through conversations, sound, images, and texts. She is interested in an investigation of intersectional viewpoints to disrupt a singular dominant voice and gaze.

She builds on the tension between the wild and the domestic, disorder and order, human and non-human. These ideas manifest through experimentation with psychogeography, reclaiming perilous spaces as a nocturn.In order to disrupt the smooth surface of the photograph, she experiments with early photographic processes using exposure to sunlight, analog, layering and cutting, to create slippages between conscious and unconscious modes of perception and knowing.

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, Marino Institute of Education, associate of Trinity College, Dublin -Masters in Education Studies (Visual Arts)
Lecturer at National University of Ireland, Galway. Adult Education: Art
History
Chairperson - Board of Directors, Engage Art Studios, Galway

Collections: Arts Council of Ireland; Perlman Teaching Museum, USA; Rochester Arts Centre, US; National University of Ireland

Awards
2023 Visual Arts Bursary Award, Arts Council of Ireland
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
2022-24 Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Intermittently)
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
2024
DLR Lexicon Library Intervention - A Woman Walks Alone at Night with a Camera, curated by Moran Benn Noon
Whistling Through Nighttown (walk/event) Brigit Dublin
A Whistling Space, Installation O' Connell Street, Brigit Dublin Festival

2023
Réaltbhuíonta (Constellations) presents recent work by studio faculty at Burren College of Art
This Rural, The Mill, Lismore Castle Arts, curated by Paul McAree and Miriam O'connor
Whistling in the Dark, solo show at Galway Arts Centre for Galway International Arts Festival, curated by Megs Morley
Whistling Brigit, Culture File (radio program).

2022
Bones in the Attic, Hugh Lane Gallery, curated by Victoria Evans
Images Are All We Have, PhotoIreland Festival & Photobook presentation
Engage Studios Members Show, Galway international Arts Festival
Galway Emerges, Kenny Gallery, Galway International Arts Festival
A Woman Walks Alone With a Camera, photobook Launch, Engage Art Studios
Photobook launch, Photo Museum, Ireland
Belfast Exposed Gallery - photobook launch/ Street View Exhibition

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

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

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

Portfolio reviews:
2004, 2009, 2013, 2014,2016 Source magazine.
2016/17 Belfast Exposed Gallery
2013 PhotoIreland Festival.




whistling in the dark A Woman Walks Alone at Night, With a Camera I Know, But Only Just I Know, But Only Just The Littoral Flâneuses The Littoral Flâneuses -collaboration w Michaële Cutaya auto-walks various homages and cliches Repetition unfixed landscape moving stills turlough swim research wall reviews / essays About/Bio contact Archive A Woman Walks Alone at Night, With a Camera	biography /About About Ruby Wallis often works with gendered experiences through photography, installation and moving image. She engages in a haptic way, using the close-up to simulate touch and direct experience through the lens. Her work focuses on the immediacy of an embodied approach. She twists and turns, working with fragmentation, shadows, and materiality. Her practice is becoming increasingly collaborative, operating through conversations, sound, images, and texts. She is interested in an investigation of intersectional viewpoints to disrupt a singular dominant voice and gaze. She builds on the tension between the wild and the domestic, disorder and order, human and non-human. These ideas manifest through experimentation with psychogeography, reclaiming perilous spaces as a nocturn.In order to disrupt the smooth surface of the photograph, she experiments with early photographic processes using exposure to sunlight, analog, layering and cutting, to create slippages between conscious and unconscious modes of perception and knowing. 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, Marino Institute of Education, associate of Trinity College, Dublin -Masters in Education Studies (Visual Arts) Lecturer at National University of Ireland, Galway. Adult Education: Art History Chairperson - Board of Directors, Engage Art Studios, Galway Collections: Arts Council of Ireland; Perlman Teaching Museum, USA; Rochester Arts Centre, US; National University of Ireland Awards 2023 Visual Arts Bursary Award, Arts Council of Ireland 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 2022-24 Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Intermittently) 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 2024 DLR Lexicon Library Intervention - A Woman Walks Alone at Night with a Camera, curated by Moran Benn Noon Whistling Through Nighttown (walk/event) Brigit Dublin A Whistling Space, Installation O' Connell Street, Brigit Dublin Festival 2023 Réaltbhuíonta (Constellations) presents recent work by studio faculty at Burren College of Art This Rural, The Mill, Lismore Castle Arts, curated by Paul McAree and Miriam O'connor Whistling in the Dark, solo show at Galway Arts Centre for Galway International Arts Festival, curated by Megs Morley Whistling Brigit, Culture File (radio program). 2022 Bones in the Attic, Hugh Lane Gallery, curated by Victoria Evans Images Are All We Have, PhotoIreland Festival & Photobook presentation Engage Studios Members Show, Galway international Arts Festival Galway Emerges, Kenny Gallery, Galway International Arts Festival A Woman Walks Alone With a Camera, photobook Launch, Engage Art Studios Photobook launch, Photo Museum, Ireland Belfast Exposed Gallery - photobook launch/ Street View Exhibition 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 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 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 Portfolio reviews: 2004, 2009, 2013, 2014,2016 Source magazine. 2016/17 Belfast Exposed Gallery 2013 PhotoIreland Festival.