Institution
National College of Art and Design (NCAD)
Medium
Print
Graduation Year
Class of 2025
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I am a multidisciplinary artist and printmaker working with textiles, sculpture, and expanded printmaking processes. My practice is driven by a sustained investigation into the intertwined narratives of female hair, femininity, and the enduring consequences of gender-based violence. Central to this exploration is the cultural and historical practice of forced hair shearing in Ireland, particularly during and after the Irish War of Independence, a violent act used as a public tool of punishment, shame, and control, specifically targeting women.My work is deeply informed by the research of Professor Linda Connolly, whose research critically examines the often overlooked treatment of women during the Irish revolutionary period. Her investigations into gendered violence, including public shaming rituals like head shaving, have shaped the conceptual grounding of my practice. I engage with these histories through a feminist lens, asking how these acts reverberate across generations and how art can serve as a means of truth telling, testimony, and reclamation.Using a combination of large-scale quilted textiles, experimental silkscreen techniques, installation, and sculptural forms, I seek to translate intangible and traumatic histories into tactile and embodied experiences. I often employ unconventional materials, such as human hair, domestic fabrics, and objects associated with care and containment, to question how femininity is constructed, policed, and weaponized. These material choices are deliberate and significant: they reinforce the domestic, the intimate, and the traditionally “feminine,” while simultaneously confronting the viewer with their discomforting histories.
