RDS Visual Art Award Exhibition 2022 at the RDS Concert Hall 21 - 29 October

Bright Futures at the RDS – Platforming Graduating Irish Artists and supporting them into the professional art world:

 

The RDS Visual Art Awards is the most important platform for visual art graduates in Ireland. It provides a curated exhibition opportunity and a significant prize fund of over €30,000, as well as vital exposure for emerging visual artists as they move into early professional practice. This year the Awards will be held at the RDS Concert Hall, Ballsbridge where a purpose-built gallery space designed by curator Aideen Barry, will be created especially for this year’s show. The 13 exhibiting artists are some of the best BA & MA visual art graduates from all over Ireland, who have gone through a highly competitive two-stage process to get their work into this coveted show. The 2022 exhibition runs from 21 to 29 October.

 

Sheena Barrett, Rayne Booth, Valerie Byrne, Mary Cremin, Eamonn Maxwell and Sharon Murphy were the team of independent curators appointed by the RDS to view the end-of-year degree shows in art colleges on the island of Ireland. Between them, they longlisted 109 artists who were invited to apply for the 2022 RDS Visual Art Awards. Completed applications from the longlisted artists were then assessed by the RDS Visual Art Awards judging panel which shortlisted them down to 28 candidates, before selecting the final 13 artists for inclusion in this year’s exhibition. The 2022 panel includes: Mary McCarthy (Chair), Eithne Jordan, Christina Kennedy, Gary Coyle and Irish artist Aideen Barry (RDS VAA 2022 Curator).

 

Each of the thirteen exhibiting artists will be in with the chance to win one of the five prizes on offer including: The RDS Taylor Art Award (€10,000); R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award (€5,000); RDS Members’ Arts Fund Award (€5,000); RHA Graduate Studio Award (€7,500 value); and finally the RDS Mason Hayes & Curran LLP Culturel Irlandais Residency Award, in Paris (€6,000 value). Winners will be announced on the opening night of the show (20 October).

 

Geraldine Ruane, RDS Chief Executive said; “The arts are a key component of the RDS Foundation Programme and its mission to make a positive contribution to the cultural and economic development of Ireland. The RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition provides a platform for talented graduates to showcase their work, and in addition, has a total prize fund equivalent of €30,000. It continues a long-standing RDS tradition of supporting emerging Irish artistic talent. The prestigious RDS Taylor Art Award has been presented by the RDS since 1860 and is still one of the most important awards for emerging visual artists in Ireland today.”

 

Aideen Barry, Artist and RDS Visual Art Awards Exhibition Curator said: "Through a dark mirror we present to you the contemporary world reflected back at you the viewer. The artists selected for this year's RDS Visual Arts Awards exhibition represent the best of contemporary emerging Irish visual culture. They offer us a proposition of ideas and musings on the way this generation is navigating the topography of our unsettling world. It is uncertain, it is non-conforming, it is melancholic, at times humorous and challenging. Prepare to be sucked in".

 

The RDS Visual Art Awards is a substantial and pivotal project that supports emerging professional artists in Ireland. It exists to support their work at this vitally important moment in their careers culminating in an exhibition which enables them to professionally present their work with an opportunity of winning one of five awards on offer.

 

2022 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibitors are:

 

FRANCINE MARQUIS

Francine graduated from Burren College of Art this year, with a Masters in Fine Art. She completed her undergraduate BA in Fine Art in California College of Art in 2013. Drawing from her early years of relocating, and from her later years spent living in and working on an old Victorian home, Francine has developed a deep interest in how personal connections fasten themselves to architectural space and their features. With meticulously sculpted, casted, built, and fractured installations, Francine explores personal memories layered within the architecture of place and interior spaces. Often creating tactile sensorial experiences between her work and the audience, she welcomes collaboration through physical engagement with ‘installations in flux’, troubling the distinction between construction and deconstruction, care and neglect. Whether fabricating, assembling, writing, sculpting, or removing, Francine’s process-based practice is shaped by careful acts of layering and material choice.

Her three works, ‘Threads Spaced too Five’, ‘Love Letters to a Landlord’, and ‘Built with (care) Nails’, all centre around two major themes, materiality and memory. Each of the meticulously crafted installations play with perceived notions of strength and delicacy as a way to evoke the ephemeral, transitory nature of how one's memory is tied to lived space. 

 

LUCY PETERS

Lucy graduated from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin this year with a Masters in Art and Research Collaboration. She completed her undergraduate BA in Fine Art at Limerick Institute of Technology. With a background in the fashion industry, she has become increasingly concerned with the vast volumes of mass-produced clothes that are casually consumed and thrown away. Her exploration of over-consumption has encompassed research into the practices of fashion retailers, including those that are closing down, as well as the strategies that have been developed by charities to manage huge warehouses full of discarded, and ultimately worthless, fast fashion clothing. 

Her work, ‘Making It Laaaast’ is informed by research into production and consumption practices, and the physical architecture of fashion retail display. It is a series of soft sculptures made from fast-fashion garments. These garments are shredded down and woven to form large sculptural pieces. All material used in Lucy’s work is found, recycled or donated.

 

MYFANWY FROST JONES

Myfanwy graduated from MTU Crawford College of Art & Design with a first-class honours degree in Fine Art having previously studied Visual Art at TU Dublin, Sherkin Island. Working as an artist and oyster farmer based in the West of Ireland; Myfanwy’s work examines the complicated relationships between land, labour and ecology in a rural space. Embracing the sublime, her work investigates the dark histories of the past whilst acknowledging the picturesque allure of the rural landscape. Her work layers conflicting histories of colonialism and invasion with current issues of biodiversity and coastal erosion, combining photography and moving image installation with the use of text to create a poetic narrative. Passionate about environmental sustainability, biodiversity and local food networks, Myfanwy’s work looks at rural life and the changes inherent in the working landscape as we enter the Anthropocene.

Her work entitled ‘Invasive Species’ is an immersive site-specific installation. This includes Invasion Stories, a self-published 50-page linen covered book, combining text and photography to investigate the stories of invasion, colonisation, land and labour. Myfanwy uses footage from her dslr camera, drone and iPhone camera in combination with text that floats meditatively across the images. Ambient sounds from the site join the sound of local children blowing into glass bottles from the shore. 

 

ORLA COMERFORD

Orla graduated from the National College of Art & Design this year with a first-class honours Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across the mediums of video, audio, photography and woodwork. The exploration of glitch art and the question of who gets to see in high resolution are central themes in her practice. Her intentional distortion, degradation and corruption of videos and images in order to create impressions, plays into these themes. As a visually impaired artist, Orla’s aesthetic pull towards glitch art and distortion of images is informed by the fact that what she sees, and how she encounters the world, is a distortion in its own sense. So, while she often makes up an image of what’s in front of her, based on impression or audio, she plays with the idea of having the viewer do the same when encountering her work.

Her work, called ‘Oidhreacht’ is an interactive installation which explores the question posed above – who gets to see in high resolution? while at the same time chronicling the tradition and legacy of craftwork in Orla’s family.

 

AISLING PHELAN

Aisling graduated from the National College of Art & Design with a first-class honour’s degree in Fine Art. Aisling is a multi-disciplinary visual artist and writer, working across 3D animation, photography, video, virtual reality, performance and live interactive technologies. Her work is mainly concerned with the exploration of the digital self and the potential for this to further our understanding of our physical selves. 

Her work, ‘Dual Reality’ is an interactive installation that explores the merging of our online and offline identities. It questions what is lost in the digital reconstruction of the human form. Merging physical and virtual space, the installation invites the viewer to fragment Aisling’s digital self. Through interaction with the work, the viewer becomes part of the interplay between the real and the virtual world as they mutually influence each other.

 

EMILY UNSWORTH

Emily graduated from South East Technological University Waterford this year with a degree in Visual Art. Emily works primarily in sculpture, painting and photography and is concerned with exploring perceptions of the human form. She investigates this through abstracted concepts of skin rather than a realistic version of self.

Her sculptures, which are disembodied, carefully draped, folded, constructed and sagging against concealed armature, fabric becomes the manifestation of human flesh. By combining ready-made objects that here has a new purpose, the fabric accentuates into real space but now as a new skin holding a new form. Shadows, similar to the colours of the fabric, are painted onto the wall around and under each sculpture. Emily says about her work that the addition of painted shadows and printed images adds more layers to already layered surfaces, reminding the viewer of complicated ideas of body image many of us experience today.

 

SZYMON MINIAS

Syzmon graduated from SETU Wexford School of Art & Design this year with a degree in Art. He specialises in paint and portraiture.

His work, ‘Collateral Play’ is a body of work exploring different faces of power. Syzmon’s use of the self-portrait is divided into several rudimentary studies celebrating the euphoric states of power brokering. The series is punctuated with visual accounts of external authority figures who display the absolute heights of jurisdiction, mirroring Syzmon’s pool of self-portraits. Largely an unfolding process of developments Syzmon sees painting as a study of abstraction of the real, where every element should have a life of its own when ruthlessly singled out. For Szymon, painting serves as an outlet to visualise his emotional reaction to the subject, where style—the appearance and relationship between elements inside the work becomes the main language. His fixations pay attention to rhythm, various angles of attack the painting can be observed from and the constant re-examination of the work’s presence.

 

KAT LALOR

Kat graduated from TU Dublin School of Creative Arts with a first-class honour’s degree in Fine Art. They are currently pursuing an MA in Fine Art, also at TU Dublin. Kat was awarded the Fire Station Artist Studios Recent Graduate Award in Digital Media. 

Kat’s work is conceptually concerned with the multi-facets of Queer Intelligibility and gender, fuelled by their academic interest in Queer Theory and Gender Studies. Inspired by 'Queer Art: Freak Theory', a contemporary text by Renate Lorenz, Kat says that they have strived to develop a visual language around Queer Gender utilising methods derived from Drag. This visual language aims to un-do signifiers of binary gender and display broader representations of non-binary gender. This has manifested within Kat’s practice through the performative act of painting the body, both concealing and revealing aspects of Queer identity, while simultaneously allowing Kat to explore and express their personal gender identity in new ways.

Their work, ‘Molasses Mourning’ is an intimate portrait of a Queer gender experience. Through the implication of their own body within the work, Kat offers small fragmented views into a personal narrative of embodied discrepancies between gender and sex. 

 

EDEN MUNROE

Eden graduated from TU Dublin School of Creative Arts this year with a first-class honours degree in Fine Art. Eden is currently undertaking an MA in Fine Art, also at TU Dublin. Eden’s work is concerned with addressing the intersection of bodily engagements and material entanglements, through the language of sculpture and installation. 

Their work, 'Plasma and Ore' is a collection of dispersed sculptural assemblages, resting on the brink of action. The material elements - metal, clay, liquid and plastic - exist in clusters, forming a constellation of dormant systems. Skeletal steel frames find themselves converging with vitreous calcified forms. A membrane stretched, liquid stagnant, the scattered remains of a system left to fossilise. In this installation, glazed ceramics rest on metal plinth-like structures. Their hardened mineral forms are a visual reflection of the patination of the very steel they encounter. Slabs of clay moulded to amorphous lumps by a hand, fired, glazed, fired again. Steel frames loom above these ceramic organs, offering protection as though they were a ribcage. Latex is stretched across a steel skeleton, a dermis attached by hand. A cluster of ceramic segmented tubes appear to sprout from the ground, straining upwards and attaching themselves to a steel leg. Steel appendages and liquid-filled tubes emerge from the wall, implicating it as a layer or membrane, and engage with the ceramic forms before them.

 

VENUS PATEL

Venus’s practice draws from her theatre and acting background, mixing performance and experimental film. Her work usually stems from her own experiences, rising from questions she has about the world, herself, and how the two interact. Venus says that as a queer person of colour, she has constantly been bothered by society and it is therefore important for her voice to be heard outside of the white heteronormative society she is so forcefully suppressed by. Venus’s work acts as a way for her to process her emotions which manifest in a complex and dynamic way. The characters Venus creates are all extensions of her own psyche representing how she navigates the world.

Her work, ‘Eggshells’ is an experimental short film that deals with her own experience of a hate-crime in which she was egged and yelled at. The film is cut into 12 different segments, each focusing on a different character performing with an egg in different contexts. As Venus tries to process the event, the egg becomes its own symbol as it shows her journey of emotions, from sadness to internalized/externalized anger to finally acceptance and growth. The film uses performance, music, and dance in order to tumble through this journey. Venus’s references to cinema and theatre create a different feel for each segment of the film.

 

MICHELLE MALONE

Michelle graduated from TU Dublin School of Creative Arts this year with a first-class honours MA in Fine Arts. Michelle completed her undergraduate degree in Fine Art in 2020, also at TU Dublin. She has won several awards including the Fire Station Artist Studio Development Award, the John Creagh Student Excellence Award, the Golden Fleece Award and the RDS Whyte’s Award as part of the RDS Visual Art Awards 2020.

Michelle’s practice is based on her experience growing up in a variety of social housing systems in inner City Dublin, mainly Oliver Bond flats. Her multi-disciplinary installations comprise of sculpture, image-making, oral histories, audio, and text. Michelle’s current practice seeks to give material voice to working class histories from the perspective of lived experience. By bringing together materials, objects, images, and stories in an installation context Michelle’s work creates a space for discussion and reflection and aims to create embodied empathy with subjects that bring systems of poverty into discussion and that also champion working-class histories.

Her work, ‘Great Uncle Joe’ is a scene-setting installation that tells the story of the Malone family’s lived experience with Artane Boys Industrial School. The installation consists of audio recorded phone call conversations, sculptural objects, image-making, text and archive footage.. 

 

SINEAD Mc CORMICK

Sinead graduated in 2022 from a Masters in Art and Environment in West Cork (TU Dublin School of Creative Arts). The MA in Art and Environment is a newly established archipelagic MA developed in collaboration with Uillinn: The West Cork Arts Centre. Previously, Sinead received her undergraduate honours degree in Visual Art on Sherkin island, also part of TU Dublin School of Creative Arts.

Sinead works with a variety of media, primarily focusing on the creation of sculptural forms and site-specific installations which often integrate alternative technologies, sonic experimentations and organic material. While Sinead has developed substantial work around the politics of migration and Island studies, her practice aims to bring together environmental contexts with embodied modes of storytelling to position islands and rurality as urgent sites of relevance for our shared responses to climate inaction and change.

Her work, ‘Adrift’ explores the histories of island mobility and everyday life. Initially focusing on the relationship between mobility access and gender disparity, the work sought to create an open space for dialogue on island experiences of freedom, restriction and exclusion. Taking discarded floorboards from an island house, a fully functioning raft was designed that would become a shared storytelling platform for islanders to discuss experiences of island life, recalling histories and island imaginaries that resisted romanticism.

 

SADHBH MOWLDS

Sadhbh graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a master’s in fine art, having previously completed a BA in Design in the National College of Art and Design in 2014. Existing in the realm of the uncanny, Sadhbh’s work straddles the line between hyper-realism and surrealism to create absurd yet recognisable realities that challenge prevalent and destructive social constructs.

 Working in an array of materials, most notably glass and silicone, Sadhbh creates grotesquely beautiful and questionably life-like work that beg the viewer’s contemplation. In ‘Eve’ a full figure sits on the floor. In the process of shaving her toe, she is caught by the viewer who sees her reflection in the mirror she is perched in front of. The two of their reflections share a space in the mirror of shame and judgement. The work is a simple comment on the absurdity of our social perceptions of beauty standards and gender roles. 

Her work, ‘The Tissues of Bondage,’ looks at the idea that our flesh can become the constraint of our freedom, a rope fabricated in painted silicone that mimics skin and is resting upon a vanity table. ‘Unmentionables’ highlights the detachment many people have with their bodies: a relationship which is entangled in falsehoods, shame and millennia of social constructs.  In ‘Double-crossed,’ the transformation between silicone and glass is symbolic of the relationship between our internal and external selves, between our being and our nothingness, our flesh and our consciousness. Preventing ourselves from “moving on” and restricting our true desires is a form of self-deception that continues to haunt our species.

 

The 2022 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition will take place in the RDS Concert Hall from October 21-29 and will be open from 10.30am-5.30pm daily. There will be exhibition tours led by curator Aideen Barry. Booking for tours will open in October. See www.rds.ie/visualart

 

Group bookings and guided tours of the RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition - please email mollie@rds.ie