It’s hard not to be optimistic about the future of art in Ireland when you explore the RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition with Colin Martin, this year’s curator. It is the eve of the opening when I visit, and the judges are deliberating at a distance. With more than €40,000 on offer in prizes, there is a great deal at stake.
There is also a great deal to navigate as the 10 artists on show, who have emerged from a longlist of 120, look to establish their careers. They are well aware, as they explain below, that it takes more than ability to make it as an artist. You also need grit, luck and opportunities.
This makes it hard not to be concerned for their futures, and for those of their graduating peers. The awards, at least, are some of the best thought-out art prizes going.
In the form they have been run in since 2016, a team of curators visit the graduate shows at art schools the length and breadth of the country. Their longlist is then whittled down to a core group who work with a curator to mount the exhibition. Back in 2016, Alice Maher curated a line-up that included many young artists who now have significant international careers, including Bassam al-Sabah, Megan Burns, Susan Buttner, Aoife Dunne, Elaine Hoey and Jane Rainey.
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The talent this year is similarly undeniable. We take a look at the world through the eyes of the next creative generation.
Sorcha Browning
Sorcha Browning’s installation Eden turns data collection into a series of digital performances, adding a nice nod to the history of painting, in a mix that is heady and profound. “Graduating can feel a little daunting. There is not necessarily a solid group that you join to get support with developing work. The space outside of university feels more dispersed, which is exciting, but it can be challenging to find your feet. I have a residency coming up at the National Sculpture Factory, in Cork, which I am excited about. I’ve been working on new characters and ideas, so I’m looking forward to developing this and seeing what’s there.” A graduate of TU Dublin’s Sherkin Island visual-art course, Browning is a winner of the €10,000 RDS Taylor Art Award, which has been presented since 1860. Previous winners include William Orpen, Mainie Jellett, Norah McGuinness, Séan Keating, Dorothy Cross and James Hanley. Browning also won the €5,000 RDS Graphic Studio Award.
Heather Hughes
Heather Hughes creates installations that explore the relationship between image and consumer in a world of endless visual information. Her work I Trust You with Your Own Eyes turns viewer into voyeur. “I focus on people and the ways we interact with each other. Living in a digitised, capitalist society gives us the paradoxical feeling of connection and proximity without the concrete material bonds and understanding that requires,” she says.
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“I’m fascinated with the paradox of fearing imperfection, even though the vulnerability of being a flawed person is what brings us closer to each other and, ultimately, ourselves.” Hughes is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design.
Cahal O’Connell/Miss Mary Jane
A visual artist, musician and cabaret performer under his drag alias, Miss Mary Jane, Cahal O’Connell works with cliche, sidestepping its traps to create moving scenarios that express humanity in all its power, vulnerability, beauty, fragility and vibrant loneliness. “Given the nature of the current sociopolitical climate, one of the biggest challenges for a fine-art graduate is finding their place among it all, independently and without the guidance of educational staff,” he says. “Finding a working theme and medium with passion can be difficult in the midst of social chaos.” O’Connell graduated from North West Regional College, in Derry, before going on to Belfast School of Art, which is part of the University of Ulster.
Ava Lowery
Ava Lowery’s works in watercolour and oil look at the nude in ways that call to mind both Lucian Freud and Jenny Saville as flesh is laid bare with an unflinching gentleness. “I create queer, intimate, female-centric naked works that work within and against the traditional nude genre,” she says. “I want to create an overarching sense of intimacy and prioritise nakedness over nudity. These pieces intend to work as a revealment of the personal and internal, of private moments made public in sweetness and normality.”
Lowey, a graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design, at TUS, is the winner of the RC Lewis-Crosby Award, worth €5,000. The judges noted the strength of her emotional and technical assurance.
Stell de Burca
A trans, nonbinary artist, Stell de Burca makes powerful paintings that balance traditional skills in oils with a comic-book-style narrative that unpacks the everyday challenges of life, bringing resilience and humanity to the fore. “Having a minimum-wage job sucks the life out of my soul, not leaving much soul left for being creative,” they say. “That is the reality for many art graduates, trying to battle the cost of living while still maintaining their artistic practice. It makes opportunities like this one life-changing.” They are a graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design, at TUS.
Kyle Fairbanks
Kyle Fairbanks creates futuristic worlds tinged with nostalgia. Enormously inventive, he even dreams up new languages, flora and fauna for his alternative realities. “I like to distort images and exaggerate them – and I would like to continue creating imaginative pieces of art, work on commissions and exhibit more. Above all I want to continue to draw and create art that is fun and humorous, a world that people can escape to, a world free of their troubles.” He is a graduate of Atlantic Technological University, in Sligo.
Keara Simonsen
Keara Simonsen, who is of Filipino and Northern Irish descent, is a visual-media artist who explores rootlessness, language, cultural displacement and human connection. “Future challenges range from a lack of financial stability to AI, which can be threatening to so many different disciplines. However, I believe that there will never be a replacement for the soul and creativity of human-made artwork, which is infused with stories and emotions. Our experiences shape so much of the art we create, so even though I know that today can be a difficult time for many graduate artists, I know that these life experiences will inform and be soulfully poured into our future work.”
Simonsen, who is a graduate of Belfast School of Art, at the University of Ulster, is the winner of the €5,000 RDS Members Art Fund Award; the judges remarked on the poignancy and beauty of her work as it deftly explores relationships, language and place.
Claire Ritchie
Claire Richie’s abstract paintings, which integrate reclaimed materials, shine through her subtle understanding of the intricacies of colour. “There’s a long list of challenges facing graduate artists today: economic insecurity, uneven access to funding, lack of affordable studio space, trying to gain recognition in the art scene, isolation, burnout… The list goes on – pretty demoralising if you think about it too much. Yet we persist! I’m grateful to have received a graduate bursary award from Queen Street Studios in Belfast, providing me with a studio for a year.” Ritchie is a graduate of Belfast School of Art, at the University of Ulster.
Fionn Timmins
Fionn Timmins cites sources from the philosopher John Moriarty to the writer Manchán Magan; some of his scenes also have echoes of Aideen Barry’s visual sensibility. The judges describe his work as “a beautiful love letter to the Irish landscape”. “It’s the cost of living that sets me back,” he says. “It is hard to find the balance between paying rent, bills and transport while dedicating time to work in the studio. My material for this work, inspired by stone circles, was 7,000-year-old bog oak. It was possibly alive in the landscape during the construction of the stone circles. The work is about what we can learn from the past and how we can use our mythology to reconnect. I have a three-month residency at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork city. I want to strengthen my portfolio and apply for a master’s in sculpture.”
Timmins, who is a graduate of MTU Crawford College of Art and Design, is the winner of the RDS Mason Hayes & Curran LLP Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency Award. Valued at €8,000, it includes three months at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris, plus €1,700 in cash.
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Mary Madeleine McCarroll
Elevating cultures once dismissed as primitive, Mary Madeleine McCarroll unlocks the potential of spirituality as a way to preserve cultural identity, using drawing, photography, sculpture, performance and painting. “I explore the intersections of my Irish and Bahamian roots, both of which have been impacted by colonial history. I examine how this still shapes contemporary realities, focusing on themes of race, identity and spirituality. Using different mediums, such as blackboards, sculpture and performance, I tell stories and create figures that are inspired by Caribbean folklore and African traditional art.” A graduate of the National College of Art and Design, McCarroll is the winner of an RHA Graduate Studio Award, valued at €7,500. It will give her full-time access to a studio space at the RHA for a year, plus a stipend of €2,500.
The RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition is at the RHA Gallery, in Dublin, until January 18th
