Tadhg Ó Cuirrín is an artist and teacher based in Galway. He received a degree in Fine Art Painting from the Limerick School of Art and Design in 2009. He works in a variety of different media, and has worked for a number of Irish arts organisations.

In September 2020, he presented "Everyone, everybody, every person, every person, every person, every person, every person", a new exhibition and book at Engage Studios, Galway. In June 2019, he exhibited a body of new paintings in a solo exhibition entitled 'Lift Yourself' at Pallas Projects in Dublin.

In 2022 he will exhibit a new body of work at Custom House Studios in Westport, Co Mayo.

His recent work has leaned increasingly towards CGI and is interested in; how we overcome blockages and breakdowns in communication, memory, pop music as a vernacular culture, and the point at which verisimilitude fails.

In 2020 his work has been supported by Ealaín na Gaeltachta, the Arts Council of Ireland, and Galway County Council.

Pat O’Sullivan is a Galway based artist. She graduated from GMIT and Crawford College of Art, Cork (CIT) in the 1990s with a BA in Fine Art and taught art at second level for a number of years. After a break to raise her family, she resumed her artistic practice in 2018.

Her work is based on the local landscape and aims to convey the experience of being in this landscape and her observations of the dynamic changes of light, weather and atmosphere throughout the seasons.

She held a joint exhibition of her work at the Cultúrlann Sweeney, Kilkee in November 2018 and participated in the Winter Open at the Courthouse Gallery, Ennistimon, 2020.

Joan Finnegan is a visual artist from Galway who graduated from CCAM, Galway with a BA in Fine Art.

She is inspired by the world around her, using the visual elements to influence but not dictate her paintings, using them as points of departure to create her art. She explores the relationships, and pushes the boundaries of colour, space and form in her work to tell her own visual story.

By simplifying the shapes and elements of the landscape, and using bold colours, there is a sense of mystery and ambiguity to her work; quite often the images taking their being from the viewer’s state of mind.

Joan has exhibited both nationally and internationally, presenting a solo exhibition of her work in Wisconsin, USA at the invitation of Galway 2020, in association with Tourism Ireland and Culture Ireland. Most recently her painting ‘Sunset I’ was part of the 139th Royal Ulster Academy exhibition in Belfast, which opened in October 2020.

She was also commissioned by Galway 2020 to create a painting, the image of which is used in their corporate branding.

Joan is presently collaborating with an artisan of exclusive handmade wool and silk rugs and wall-hangings, creating a series of wall-hangings for their new collection.

Her work is in a number of corporate and private collections including the Irish Consulate in Chicago, Galway City Council, Irish Water Safety and GMIT.

www.joanfinnegan.ie

Hilary Morley is a visual artist living in Galway in the West of Ireland. Her themes are based on her passion for landscape and suburbia, as well as a colourful view of life as a homemaker. She has curated multi-disciplinary exhibitions for The Galway International Arts Festival, Ceramics Ireland, Galway Design Week, Farmleigh Gallery, Dublin and The Wandesford Quay Gallery Cork.  She edits an online journal about Irish traditional and contemporary craft called http://www.making.ie/

Jane Queally, from Co Clare, lives in Galway city, completed an MA in Visual Art Practice from IADT 2012 and a BA in Fine Art (Hons) from Sligo Institute of Technology 2002. She works predominately in painting and experimental photographic media, the latter is broadly concerned with analysing representations of the photographic image in print media as ‘document’, in the construct of social narrative. Jane is currently developing new work in her
painting practice.
She has exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions, including Tulca festival of visual art, Claremorris Open 2011/12/14. ‘Public Gesture’ The Lab, Foley St, Dublin 2011. 126 Annual members show 2012/14. Selected International artists exhibition ‘Teling Lies’ Rua Red Tallagh 2015 curated by Paul Mc Aree. Most recently exhibiting in ‘ Material Conditions’ selected group show with Engage members at Platform Arts , Belfast. She has been the recipient of Visual Art Bursary awards from Galway City and County councils and the D O’Sullivan Graphic Medal from the Sligo Institute of Technology. Her work is in a number of public and private collections including H.E.T.A.C Dublin, Aras an Uachtarain and S.I.T., Bank Of Ireland.

Jojo Hynes completed her MA in Fine Art at Kingston University, London and a degree in Fine Art from CCAM, GMIT, Galway. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in group and solo shows. Jojo has participated in residencies in London, Krocow, Stuggart and Budapest. As a member of the art collective Triangular Brush she has created exhibitions and events across London, Ireland and the rest of Europe.

Jojo Hynes’ current practice explores representations of real and fictional female protagonists, playing with hierarchies. She is influenced by where the past and the present meet and overlap, using collage across a range of media including film, sculpture, sound, paint and print.

Jojo Hynes is also an artist educator with over 10 years experience working with a variety of organisations in Australia, UK and Ireland. She is currently a Creative Associate for the Arts Council of Irelands Creative Schools initiative.

Noelle Gallagher is a visual artist based in Galway. Although primarily a painter, she incorporates photography and film into her practice. The themes of life, death and temporality thread through all her work and currently focus on the science of biophilia, deforestation and rewilding. Her first short film, Still Life premiered at DIFF in 2019 alongside two Oscar nominated shorts.

A member of Interface Inagh, and graduate of GMIT (2011), she recently completed two years of mentoring by established painters with Turps Art School, London. Her paintings have been selected for numerous juried shows both nationally and internationally, including PeripheriesOPEN, Rua Red, the neo:artprize, Cairde Visual, and the Claremorris Open. Her work was included in Restless curated by Paul McAree at 126 Gallery, Cahoots: The Space Between curated by Nicola Anthony at Sample Studios, and Essays for the House of Memory curated by Haizea Barcenilla at Ormston House. Solo shows include Silent Rhythm (Linenhall Arts Centre, 2018) and Recollect (Saolta Arts, 2016).

She is a recipient of the Emerging Irish Artist Residency Award and several Individual Artist Bursaries from Galway County Council. Recent residencies include the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, The Burren College of Art, Cill Rialaig, and Powerscourt Townhouse, Dublin. In 2020 she was awarded a bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Cecilia Danell (b.1985) is a Swedish artist based in Galway since 2004. While regarding painting as her main medium, her work is multifaceted and also utilises film and installation. Through her own encounters with the Scandinavian landscape, she explores the theatricality of places that become imbued with artifice, as they can’t live up to the human need for that which is primal, wild and untouched.

Recent exhibitions include: ‘I set a Bait for the Unknown’ (solo), Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin (2020), London Art Fair, UK (2020), ‘In a Landscape' (solo) at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), Dublin (2019), ‘In a Landscape’ (solo), Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin (2019), ’Futures - Series 3 Episode 2' at the RHA, Dublin (2018), BEEP Painting Biennial, Swansea, UK (2018), 'The Last Wilderness' (solo) at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon IE (2017) and Galway Arts Centre IE (2017) which received a five star review in the Irish Times (Aidan Dunne 28/03/17) with upcoming solo exhibitions at The Burren College of Art Gallery, Clare IE and Claremorris Gallery, Mayo IE in 2021. Cecilia Danell was artist in residence at Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris during January and February 2020 as the 2019 recipient of the Visual Artists Ireland and Suki Tea Art Prize. Previous residencies include the Nordic Artists Centre Dale, Norway (2016) and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre IE (2012, 2013, 2018). In 2019 she was named an artist to watch by critic Cristin Leach and in 2020 she received the ESB Keating Award and Medal for an Outstanding Artwork at the 190th RHA Annual Exhibition and was shortlisted for both the RCSI Art Award and the Hennessy Craig Award. The latter is the largest painting prize in Ireland awarded biannually to a young painter, with the award exhibition due to take place at the RHA in early 2022. Danell has received several Arts Council Bursary and Project Awards (2010, 2011, 2017, 2019, 2020), including the 2017 Arts Council Next Generation Award. Her work is in the collections of The Office of Public Works, the Irish Arts Council, Trinity College, Dublin, Kelly Resort Hotel, Rosslare, Wexford County Council, Galway City Council, Motala Municipal Council, Sweden and private collections in Ireland, Sweden, Norway & the UK. A publication on Danell's work with an essay by Sue Rainsford was launched in March 2017. Cecilia Danell is represented by Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin.

www.ceciliadanell.com

www.kevinkavanagh.ie

Vicky Smith is a multidisciplinary process-based artist & educator from Galway City. Her practice experiments with painting, printmaking, film, photography, assemblage sculptures and installation.She graduated with a BA in Fine Art & H.Dip for Art and Design Teachers from Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork in 1999 & 1998, an MA from Goldsmiths College (Arts Administration & Cultural Policy), University of London (2007), & an MA (Art in Contemporary World) from the National College of Art & Design, Dublin (2011). She worked with the British Council as a teacher of art, craft, and design on the Teachers of Botswana Recruitment Scheme for two years. She is a recent recipient of the Visual Arts Agility Award, Round 1 from the Arts Council, Ireland 2023 and 2021. In 2017, 2014 & 2011 she was awarded the Individual Artist Award from Galway City Council & Artist in School Award from Galway County Council (2017 & 2016). She has worked as an artist-in-residence with various schools in the West of Ireland as part of the Creative Schools Arts Council initiative. She was an invited artist on the Making Space process-led collaborative project coordinated by Croi na Gaillimhe, Our Lady’s College, and the National University of Ireland, Galway. She was the secretary of Engage Art Studios board of directors for five years, on the board of directors of 126 artist-run gallery for two years, FEACH’s advisory education officer, a proposal for a purpose built space for visual art in Galway City.

Her work is centred around the feelings conjured by a year in which she existed as a body predominantly in a domestic space. Smith researches body awareness in domestic spaces, feelings of interiority and how these reflect a visceral understanding of the human body, the female psyche, and her relationship to domestic space and nature as a means of understanding the figure as a subject matter. The work inspires a phenomenological inquiry into how as women we see each other and ourselves. The viewer is invited to see, feel, and empathise with the experience of the interior struggle that a sentient body undergoes in a domestic space and how this conflict affects the human body on physical, conscious, and subconscious levels.

Exhibitions include; ‘Infinite Possibilities’, Galway International Arts Festival ‘23. Brigid Mulligan, Vicky Smith & Cecilia Bullo, Galway City,(IRL) ‘My Favourite Artwork’, The Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin(IRL),’2012-2022,’ a decade of exhibitions, The Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin(IRL)‘Engage Members Show’ Galway International Arts Festival, Engage Art Studios Gallery, Galway (IRL), ‘Outrageous, Obscene and Offensive’(Bloomsday) Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin (IRL) ‘Memento’, Olivier Cornet Gallery; ‘Pluid Project’, The Cowshed Gallery, Farmleigh Estate; ‘The Morphing Feminine,’ a Bloomsday, group exhibition with the Olivier Cornet Gallery; ‘Drawing on Don Quixote’ Wexford National Opera House, VUE Art Fair & the RHA, Dublin; ‘Benchmark’, Linenhall Arts Centre, Mayo; ‘Hiatus’,126 Artist-Run Gallery, Galway; ‘Material Conditions’, Platform Arts, Belfast; ‘Nasty Women’, Pallas/Project studios, Dublin; Narrating Self, Translating the Other, Galway Arts Centre;‘House of Blindness’(solo) PS2 & Paragon Studios Belfast; ‘Little Kingdoms’, Catalyst Arts, Belfast; ‘Spectrum of Activity’, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork; ‘Discerning Eye’, Pall Mall Galleries, London; Fresh Art Fair, Design Centre, Islington, London; Affordable Art Fair, Twickenham Art Gallery, London. She is an associate member of the AGA artist group with the Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin. In 2013 she had an artist residency at Galway Arts Centre which culminated in a solo exhibition Mega Bubble Space Burbs. Her work is in private collections in Ireland, UK, United Arab Emirates, and Canada. Recent collaborations include a text & audio recording in response to the ‘Pandora Myth’, Winter Papers Vol.6 2020 & Solus Nua (Claire-Louise Bennett & Ruby Wallis) .

www.vickysmith.ie

Simon Daly is originally from Kerry but now based in Galway. He graduated from CCAM, GMIT, with a bachelor (HONS.) in Fine Art in 2015. His paintings cover many themes and he is interested in mark making form and shape. Simon mainly uses oils but introduces other mediums to his work when  needed.

“Without thought or intention I started painting everything I was looking at pallet knifes brushes etc. I also became influenced by the shapes outside the window. My palette began to be influenced by my new surroundings. From the blue carpet, green trees, pink skies outside and cars and buses passing peoples cloths I would paint loose and fast and hang them on the wall and move swiftly on to the next.”

Red Burke is a native of Roscommon who spent his entire working life in the computer and electronics industry in Galway. During that time, he studied art in GMIT, part time for six years and one year full time, and completed an Honours Degree in Fine Arts. Red completed an MA in Creative Practice in 2017 at GMIT. His practice involves the production of paintings based on a former Digital computer industry in Galway and the Marconi radio communication station in Clifden. As an artist, he is fascinated with the way that computer and radio components are laid out with respect to each other. Red seeks to breathe life into a forgotten era and display it on canvas.

Michelle Hill is a native of Galway who graduated from CCAM, GMIT, with a BA (Hons.) in Fine Art in 2015. She works primarily in paint but also has a keen interest in photography.

Paul Malone is a visual artist based in Mayo. His visual art practice utilises painting, photography and film. Erosion, magnetism, and gravity are some of the forces that shape Paul's art. Rather than painting the landscape Paul engages directly with the environment, using found materials to create textures and pigments. He is interested in the connection between the influence of the physical forces on the environment and the seemingly unrelated process by which human thoughts are formed. In the romantic tradition of landscape painting, thoughts are disembodied. The observer is outside the environment. In his work, by contrast, Paul sees thoughts, about the painting and about the environment that produced it, as forming patterns which are created by physical forces and chemical reactions that are rooted in the body. He likens the influence of physics on matter as being analogous to how ideas take form then influence people, events and things. Paul is a graduate of NUI Galway and has an honors degree in Visual Communication and a Masters in Film Direction and Production. He is currently attaining a postgraduate qualification to be an educator in the creative arts sector. Paul is a published author and photographer. He has exhibited his paintings in selected venues around Galway and is currently collaborating with the award winning poet Noel Duffy on a moving image installation in Dublin. You can follow his work by searching @paulmaloneart on facebook or by visiting https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaloneArt/

Bio

Dee Deegan is a Galway based Artist-Teacher and owner of Galway Art Academy. Dee is a practicing artist and educator who continues to hone her craft through exhibitions, providing inspiration for lessons with her students. Dee’s work is multidisciplinary combining drawing, collage, printmaking, photography, installation, altered book art, bookmaking, furniture design & pattern design. She combines traditional and more modern digital methods to create work. Inspiration comes from her own personal experiences and observations. Themes of transience and memories dominated her work for many years and more recently her work has been focused on personal identity and belonging. She holds an MA in Creative Practice, Higher Diploma in Art and Design Teacher Education, BA in Art and Design, and BA in Fine Art (first-class honours). As a freelance art teacher, she works in primary and secondary art education and has also lectured in Contemporary Art at GMIT, volunteered in the Limerick Prison Education Centre and worked in nursing homes with Alzheimer’s patients. Dee integrates elements of her own art practice into her teaching and delivers workshops that inspire creativity and use a cross curricular approach. Highly regarded nationally, Dee has begun working as a Creative Associate for the Arts Council of Ireland in 2020 and recently reviewed the new Leaving Certificate Art History & Appreciation Book for Gill Education. She is also a member of the Education Panel for the Design & Craft Council of Ireland, Galway Rural Development and Clare County Council. In 2014 Galway City Council awarded her an Individual Artists Bursary and in 2020 she worked with them again on the Artist in Schools Programme. Dee has shown work in the Galway International Arts Festival Impressions exhibition in 2015, 2016 and 2018. In 2012 her work was selected for the Claremorris Open Exhibition. Dee also spent three weeks in Finland in 2011 on an artist’s bursary awarded by Leargas and Galway VEC. She has taken part in several group exhibitions in Galway, Dublin and London and her work is held in private collections. Dee has been a member of Engage Art Studios since 2017.

deirdredeegan.weebly.com

www.galwayartacademy.com

Angela O'Brien is from Co. Galway and has achieved an Honours Degree in Art & Design (Paint) from GMIT (Chluain Mhuire). Her works are informed through the mediums of photography, painting and drawing. She experiments in creating compositions that don’t necessarily follow a theme but come into being organically from the act of creating and 'playing' with materials, images and everyday observation. Angela lives in Galway.

Seamus current work varies in themes, but always seems to connect the Man made world with that of the natural world and sprinkles of a Magical world that doesnt quite exist. Seamus works mostly in oil on canvas but has been known to incorporate Print, Sound and Video into his work as he deems necessary.

Joan Sugrue is a Galway based visual artist who obtained her degree in Fine Art (First Class Honours) in 2011 from GMIT and was awarded Student of the Year in Paint. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally including RDS Student Awards, Irish Wave III Bejing, China, Eigse and as part of the Kitchen Table Collective in Tulca (2011). In November 2012 she won the ARTSTAP Title Award for critical writing.

Born in Sri lanka, Avi Ratnayake emigrated to the UK in 1994. He is now based in Galway, and has been producing digitally manipulated artworks and photography since 2003. He started out in digital photography then moved on to analogue and now uses a combination of both. Having studied Fine Art at university in Bristol, he went onto studying Photography at the City of Westminster College in London. He has exhibited in the Coach House in Dublin Castle, Ireland and in the Truman Brewery, London UK to name a few. His major influences range from the masters of photography like August Sander, Alexey Titarenko, Nadav Kander, Sugimoto Hiroshi, to illustrators such as Kato Aya and Enki Bilal.

Avi Ratnayake’s work encompasses portraits and landscapes, macro and fine art and touches on the subject of interfaces; meeting points between worlds, cultures, different forces where a truth is revealed; such as his portraits of people with vitiligo presents individuals, often stigmatised in various societies, in a fine art context. Other works capture marginalised individuals and professionals who are found between the old and new worlds. Through his explorations employing mainly analogue and digital photography, and sometimes illustration he seeks to draw out a narrative of appreciation. He hopes by doing so a viewer can engage with the ‘interface’ in a similar way to change and evolve one’s perspective.

Currently, Avi has been working on a landscape project exploring the space between a significant length of time and the ephemerals that exist within that time. Outside of this project he is engaged with marginalised communities in a community integration project, photographing the events and the individuals involved.

Exhibitions

● Benchmark. The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, County Mayo. Jan-Feb 2020

● Cuirt Festival: Notes to Self. March 2019 Galway

● Narrating Self, translating the Other. Galway Arts Centre

April 2018

● Cuirt Festival: Fragmented Shore. March 2018 Galway

● Untitled 11 - London - July 2011

● Free Range: Untitled 11,Truman Brewery, London - June

2011

● The Artful Dodger: The Once and Future Britain,

Iniva London - January 2010

● Identicons: Icons & Cultural Identity, LCC November 2009

● The Big Picture, Ireland September 2009

● The Coach House Show, Dublin Castle. Ireland.

August 2009

● The Coach House Show, Dublin Castle, Ireland

September 2007

● SOLD. Centrespace Gallery, Bristol. August 2003

● Freerange: SOLD. Hanbury Gallery, London July 2003

www.aviratnayake.com

Stephanie McLaughlin is a visual artist working in the west of Ireland. Within her practice she is drawn to unremarkable features or structures within the landscape. She depicts fragmented landscape, small structures, light and shade. McLaughlin creates these images in a manner which is visually arresting, as she is seeking a type of poetics in the landscape. McLaughlin’s oil paintings which result from this exploration, are varied in scale.

McLaughlin has had two solo exhibitions in Galway, and has been involved in numerous group shows. She was longlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Awards in 2016.

McLaughlin’s work has been purchased by Galway City Council, and she has completed numerous private commissions. She has recently competed an MA in Creative Practice at the Centre for Creative Arts and Media in Galway.

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Elena Moreno is a Spanish artist, based in Galway since 2013. Passionate about art from a young age and fascinated with the creative process, Elena completed her studies in History of Art, Fine Art and Restoration between Valencia and Italy before settling in the West of Ireland.

She has been a full member of Engage Art Studios since 2017 and was one of the first artists at Francis Street Studios.

Elena’s paintings represent various themes, though they focus mainly on landscapes. She primarily works with oil paint, though is currently experimenting with new mediums such as Cold Wax/oil with which she recreates the vibrant skies, textured rocks, and rugged landscapes of the West of Ireland.

She represents her surroundings with a technical skill and use of colour which captures our imagination.

Mariez was born in Denmark and raised in Mexico and Spain. She
lived in different countries before graduating in Fine Art with honours at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Ireland. The feeling of being an outsider is expressed in artworks showing a distorted reality. The artist approaches the painting as an object, and rage catalyses compositions that have been torn apart and built up again. The use of mixed media applied in successive layers reveals the conflict of the artist and the painting freeing itself from it.

Maeve Curtis’ art practice is a meditation on the mysteries, anxieties and metaphysics which ghost around imaging technologies. A graduate of National University of Ireland, Galway she had a ten year corporate management career under her belt when she decided to study Fine Art. She gained a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from Centre for Creative Arts and Media, GMIT, Ireland. In 2007, she was also awarded the AIB Graduate of the Year in Paint and Galway City & Galway County Council Emerging Artist Awards

Ruby Wallis is an award winning artist who recently completed her PhD in Fine Art Practice at the National College of Art & Design, Dublin. She also has an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of South Wales. In 2013 she was nominated for the Prix Pictet Award and won first prize at The Claremorris Open Exhibition. Wallis was selected for Belfast Exposed Futures and is preparing for a solo show in 2016. She lectures in Visual Culture at Griffith College, Pulse College and The Burren College of Art.

BRIGID MULLIGAN | BIO

In 2018 Mulligan gained a Masters-in-creative Practice from CCAM Galway. Mulligan received a First-Class Honours Degree in Fine Art Sculpture from CCAM Galway, in 2009. Her work has been exhibited in group shows in various Museums and Galleries nationwide which include ‘Westival’, Westport Arts festival, ‘In Situ’, 126 Gallery Galway, ‘M:A 18’, Connacht Tribune Gallery, ‘Impressions’ Galway International Arts Festival, ’Printed Matter’, Galway Print Studio and ‘Put a lid on it’ Galway Arts Centre. An orbital member of Engage Studio’s Galway in collaboration with Sample studios Cork ‘Chandelier’ 2018 was selected and virtually exhibited in Cahoots: The Space Between 2020.

Awards include Professional Development Award from the Arts Council Ireland 2020, RHA Foundation in drawing scholarship 2020/21, a monthlong residency in 126 Gallery Galway and Galway city Council’s Tyrone Guthrie Bursary 2019. Upcoming residencies for 2021 include Cill Rialaig, Ballinaskelligs, Kerry and two months at Creative Spark Dundalk.

BRIGID MULLIGAN | ARTIST STATEMENT

Brigid Mulligan is a visual artist based in Galway in the West of Ireland. Mulligans work looks into grief and mourning through ritual and artefact. The compelling nature to memorialize through collection and arrangement. Experiencing the loss of her brother and close friends due to road traffic accidents, her work forms perspective through a lens of loss. Mulligan is interested in subjects of grief, memory, trauma, fear and memorialization through the object. She considers these elements through drawing, animation, object making and installation in the hope that these works engage conversations of how we navigate our own grievances.

https://www.brigidmulliganvisualartist.org