Artists
Tadhg O’Cuirín
Vicky Smith
Eimear Twomey
Roisin O’Brien
Siobhan McGibbon
Angela O'Brien
Michelle Doyle
Áine Phillips
Seamus Keane
Miriam Donohue
Maeve Curtis
Dave Callan
Eimear Jean McCormack
Cecilia Danell
Maria Brennan
Ann Maria Healy
Katie O'Halloran
Jim Ricks
Tim Acheson
Sandra Bunting
Tadhg O’Cuirín
Tadhg O’Cuirrín work addresses themes of Irish youth culture, love, spirituality and power, set against the backdrop of the urban night time environment. Working primarily through painting, he aims to recontextualise this landscape as one of aspiration and beauty, where the typical ‘night out’ is not a scene of soulless drunken revelry, but one brimming with life and vitality.
O’Cuirrín studied and achieved his Honours Degree in Fine Art, Painting in the Limerick School of Art
and Design in 2009. He has exhibited around the country and in 2008 won the Hunt Museum Group Painting Exhibition, 1st Purchase Prize. He currently lives and works in Galway city and is a board member of 126 - Artist run gallery.
<top>
Vicky Smith
Victoria Smith is now Galway based artist, art administrator and arts educator. She studied in CCAD graduating from the print department and as a teacher of art and design and recently with an MA in arts administration and cultural policy from Goldsmith College University of London. Upon completion of her studies she travelled extensively to Africa, America, London, throughout Europe while working and researching as an artist and arts educator. Her work to date focuses on the theme of travel, identity, the domestic and the sense of absence.
Smith uses a variety of disciplines such as Sculpture, Print and Textiles, Photography, Paint, Installation and the found object to inform her work. The use of material in her work questions and subverts themes for the viewer. Drawing an the history of art adds a language and meaning to the works which are installed in derelict buildings or the blank space. Smith is commencing her MA -Art in the Contemporary World, NCAD . Smith is currently a board member of 126 artist led gallery and the steering committee for FÈach, a proposal for a purpose built visual arts centre for Galway.
<top>
With an ambiguous outlook of the things in our everyday life, Twomey as intrigued with how they appear to us, how they are created and how they can be recreated. By engaging in a un-determined approach, her work process is always viable to change in accordance with my own experience.
Eimear Twomey graduated with a BFA Degree Honours, from GMIT, Cluain Mhuire College of Art
and Design.
She had her fisrt solo show, Il y a Qouitidien-There is everyday, at 126, Galway in January 2010 and has recently exhibited in Happening no. 2 - ‘Make your own instrument’, Galway Arts Centre, ‘23 1/2: An inquiry into an unattainable space’ / Happening no. 1, Silkes building, Galway City, Rediscovering your Locality, Cork Arts Trail, Cork City, Ready or not.. here I come, Rosa Parks Gallery, Galway and the GMIT Degree show, Galway. She is a member of the Knee Jerk arts collective.
Roisin O'Brien graduated from G.M.I.T with an honours degree in Textile Design in 2009. Since then she has been actively exhibiting with Knee-jerk, the artist collective she helped establish. Their work is collaborative and conceptually engages with the public.
In her own work Roisin uses textiles as a fine art. She remakes everyday objects out of fabric, portraying her emotions by the context in which she places the objects. In doing this she attempts to evoke new perceptions and feelings relating to the particular object.”
<top>
Siobhan McGibbon is an English-Irish artist based in Galway. She graduated from G.M.I.T in 2009 for which she received a first class honors and was awarded Sculpture student of the year. Since she has exhibited throughout Ireland in Galway, Mayo, Cork, Kildare, Limerick and Dublin. In February 2010, McGibbon completed a residency in Berlin and in November she will return for he first solo show.
McGibbon a member of the artist collective Knee-jerk a multi-disciplinary group of visual artists based in galway. Knee-jerk originally engaged in site-specific, ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to the spaces that we occupied. However, since our inception our work has become more collaborative and conceptually engaged with the public.
Angela O'Brien
Angela is from Co. Galway and studied Art & Design in the 1980’s. Moved to Germany and came back to Ireland in the late 1990’s. Returned to art studies in 2003, attending GMIT (Chluain Mhuire) and completing it with an Honours Degree in Art & Design (Paint) in 2006. Lives in Galway City.
Michelle Doyle
<top>
Áine Phillips
Áine Phillips makes performance and video art in Ireland and internationally. She is involved in artist led projects and curates live art events in Ireland. Her work aims to link autobiographic themes, actions and images with wider social and political realities.
www.ainephillips.com
<top>
Seamus Keane
Seamus Keane works and lives in Galway, Ireland. He has a Cert in Graphic Design and both a Diploma and Degree in Fine Art from Sligo IT. He works as part of the Engage studios in Middle Street in Galway city. Seamus teaches Grinds in Art Development for pre-college and portfolio students, which he considers to be of great help in understanding his own work.
Seamus' current work is a re-imagining of classical art-works with modern sensibilities, hoping to reconnect with the more painterly classic themes which will spring board into a long gestating personal project. Seamus works mostly in Oil on Canvas but has been known to incorporate Print, Sound and Video into his work as he deems necessary.
<top>
Miriam Donohue
Miriam Donohue is an artist based in Galway. She has Degree in Fine Art (Sculpture) from GMIT. She is a multimedia artist with a particular interest in fabrics and film making. She recently completed a course in Digital video production and editing. Miriam has exhibited over the years as part of Cara G, ‘Cuallacht’, ENSO, Tulca, Muscailt, Volvo Arts Trail, Galway Arts Festival and Galway Culture Night and has been a member of Engage Studios for 2 years.
<top>
Maeve Curtis
Maeve Curtis, a graduate of National University of Ireland, Galway, gained a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from GMIT, Ireland. She was awarded both the AIB Graduate of the Year in Paint and the Galway City and Galway County Council Emerging Artist Award. Her practice is conceptually driven and her work, ranging in medium from paint to sculptural installations, has been selected for Tulca (2004, 2007), Claremorris Open (2005, 2007), Iontas (2007), RDS Art Awards (2006), Glor (2007), Impressions Open (2008) and Galway Arts Festival (2010). Curtis has also exhibited with Norman Villa Gallery, Claremorris Gallery and Galway Arts Centre. Her work has been purchased for both private and public collections.
Dave Callan is an artist and curator working in Galway. He works in a variety of media to create politically and socially motivated art that is in turn satirical and earnest but ultimately defeatist. Currently the chairperson of 126, Artist-run Gallery, Callan has a BA from GMIT and is a member of Engage Art Studios and the artist collective Expanded Draught.
<top>
Eimearjean McCormack graduated in 2007 with an MA in Fine Art Print from Camberwell College of Art,
University of The Arts, London. She has exhibited widely in Ireland as well as New York, London, France and China. Awards to date include the Lower Eastside Print Studio New York Residency Award 2010, Arts Council Travel & Training Award 2010, Cork Printmakers Residency Award (2008), Camberwell College of Art MA Printmaking Award 2007, de Blacam and Meagher Architects Award 2004. Her work is in the collections of OPW, Scott Tallon Walker Architects and University College Cork.
<top>
Cecilia Danell is a Swedish artist based in Galway since 2004. She graduated from the GMIT in Galway in 2008 with a first class honours degree in painting and was awarded Paint student of the year.
In her work feelings of otherness and longing combine with questions concerning identity and the
perception of the Self. Utopian and Dystopian landscapes act as stage sets where the boundaries between the universal and the personal, the known and the unknown, reality and fiction become blurred.
Since graduating Cecilia has exhibited in Ireland and the USA, including group and two person shows in The Red House Arts Centre in Syracuse NY, The Crow Gallery in Dublin, Galway Arts Centre, 126 Gallery and The Claremorris Open.
Maria Brennan, originally from Carlow has been based in Galway City since 2003 and has exhibited nationally in group and solo shows since 2002 including Eigse Carlow Arts Festival Selection 2002 and 2005, the RDS Student Art Awards 2005, Dublin and solo show in the Bookcube Gallery, Rathmines, Dublin, 2007.
Her studies include a postgraduate degree from National University of Ireland, Galway and a primary degree, specialising in paint, from Cluain Mhuire Art College, Galway. Her work is included in the collections of the OPW as well as private collections in Ireland and England.
<top>
Ann Maria Healy is a multi media artist whose practise includes live performance, sound, installation and photography. Her work explores the bodies’ relationship to space and time. In particular focusing on cycles, how they can affect and shape our lives.
www.annmariahealy.carbonmade.com
<top>
Katie O’Halloran is a visual artist working and living in Galway city, Ireland. She graduated with a BA (honours) degree in Fine Art from Cluain Mhuire, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology in 2010 and is now a member of Engage Art Studios. Her practice explores notions of memory, time and in-between spaces. She has exhibited in various spaces around Galway including the Galway Technical Institute, the CafÈ Foyer in GMIT, the Pink Cottage, Henry Street and Cluain Mhuire, Monivea Road. She has also shown her video work in Crosstalk, a video art festival in Budapest. She is a founding member of the artist group “A-merge.”
<top>
Born in California, Jim Ricks received his MFA from the National University of Ireland, Galway and Burren College of Art programme and his BFA from the California College of the Arts.
Ricks has exhibited nationally and internationally. In 2010 he received the Artlink ‘New Art Award’; was selected for Video Killed the Radio Star at the Royal Hibernian Academy (Dublin); has had solo shows at Fort Dunree (Co. Donegal), Occupy Space (Limerick) and Pallas Contemporary Projects (Dublin); took part in group shows with Dock Discourse at 126 and offsite (Galway), The Galway Arts Festival (Galway), Monster Truck Temple Bar (Dublin) and Pallas Contemporary Projects (Dublin). In 2009 he exhibited in the Galway Arts Centre (Galway), Monster Truck Gallery (Dublin) and participated in Frieze Projects’ COPYSTAND: Autonomous Manufacturing Zone (London).
Ricks has an upcoming solo show with Mochuda Projects programme at Lismore Castle Arts (Lismore, Co. Cork) and is working on the touring public works Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen and In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth), a collaboration with Cause Collective (US) in 2011.
Tim Acheson is a visual artist based in Galway City, working with video and sound. He graduated from GMIT in 1999 with a National Diploma in Fine Art and in 2009 with a first class Honors Degree in Fine Art (Sculpture). His current work focuses on the human aspect and reaction to the physical landscape, with particular emphasis on upland and coastal spaces.
timacheson.carbonmade.com
<top>
Sandra Bunting
<top>
© 2010 Engage Art Studios