Ultraviolet Art Talks

On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Sian Costello in 2022.

Sian Costello (b. 1998) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Limerick City, Ireland.

Since graduating from Fine Art Painting in Limerick School of Art and Design in 2020, Costello has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently with her solo show Baby Obey Me at Modern Animals, Zurich, and the group show girls, girls, girls at Lismore Castle Arts, curated by Simone Rocha.

She has been the recipient of the individual bursary award from the Arts Council of Ireland and project funding from Culture Ireland. Her work has been profiled in The Guardian, The Art Newspaper, British Vogue, Another Magazine, The Visual Artist’s Newsletter, and The Irish Arts Review. She is currently preparing work for two solo shows at Paragon Studios at PS2, Belfast, and at Ormston House, Limerick.

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For more information, follow Sian Costello on Instagram @siancostelloart

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Day Magee in 2022.

Day Magee is a performance-centred multimedia artist based in Dublin. Since 2011, they have performed as part of live art organisations such as Livestock and the Dublin Live Art Festival, before pursuing a BA in Sculpture & Combined Media in Limerick School of Art & Design in 2017, during their time there staging group live art events with the collective Evil, and by their third year exhibiting work as part of Galway’s Tulca Festival 2019, group shows in Dublin and Manhattan, as well as being put forward for the Future Generation Art Prize 2020 by its Irish partner platform Pallas Projects Studios, and shortlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Awards. They are most recently commissioned by Arts & Disability Ireland and Live Art Ireland in 2021.

Magee’s work concerns the grieving of futurity as per the subjectivity of a queer sick body - queerness navigated via fundamentalist Christianity, and illness as manifest in chronic pain. Taking the form of performative multimedia, from live performance to image-making, the written word and music, they manifest and chronicle a self-mythology

Selected works;

2022

-February: ‘you breathe differently down here’ at Draoícht Blanchardstown - Work: ‘A Thing Least Like Eternity’ [Video]

-March: Solo show ‘Contraindications of the Cross’ at Pallas Projects/Studios

2021

-March: ‘Sam’s Eden’ at Catalyst Arts, Belfast [Online] - Work: ‘The Garden of Jarman’ [Video]

-May: Solo exhibition with Emerge Arts Magazine [Online] - Work: ‘Triloquy’ [Video]

-May: Bealtaine Festival 2021 [Online] - Work: ‘A Male Keening (vi)’ [Performance]

-May: ‘Rally’ Graduate Show at Limerick School of Art & Design [Online] - Work: ‘A Thing Least Like Eternity’ [Video]

-September: Gaze Film Festival 2021, IFI Cinema - Work: ‘Unprotected’ as part of ‘Shame//Less” [Video]

-November: Revision Performing Arts Festival, Flax Art Studios, Belfast - Work: ‘Bethesda’ [Performance]

-December: ‘Pathology of Energy’ with Arts & Disability Ireland [Online] - Work: ‘Body Without World’ [Video]

-December: ‘Virtually Alive & Steaming’ with Live Art Ireland [Online] - Work: ‘Eat the Good of the Land’ [Video]

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For more information, follow Day Magee on Instagram @daymagee

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Ute Klein in 2022, a fascinating chat and deep dive into her intriguing and beautiful paintings.

Ute Klein, studied at the University of Bern and the M+F Lucerne Design School, and was an artist in residence at the Plüschow Castle (Germany), the Nairs Foundation (Switzerland), the Cité des Arts Paris (France), and Melbourne (Austria).

Exhibitions have included the Museum Langmatt Baden (2016), the Thurgau Art Museum (1999, 2001, 2013, 2018, 2020), Kassel (2002, 2009), the Kunstraum Vaduz (2011), and the Nairs Art Gallery in Scuol (2017). She has held regular solo exhibitions at the Adrian Bleisch (Arbon) and Sylva Denzler (Zurich) galleries, and previously at the Schönenberger Gallery (Kirchberg, St. Gallen), as well as several sponsorship awards and commissions for art in architecture. Lives and works in Amriswil.

“My painting develops in collaboration with circumstances and chance.

I paint by pouring paint onto flat canvases, which I then tip over.

The relationships in space, between pigments, and to underlying layers are as influential as the forces that cause the diluted paint to flow.

My painting is a representational thought of movements: movements of and in liquids, masses of rock, in and between cells, of crowds of people, of the behavior of different crowds toward one another, of growth, dissolution, and fusion.

My painting is a fragile, ambivalent reflection on inner and outer life processes.” —Ute Klein

(Translation in English from the original text by Dr. Katharina Ammann, Prof. Dr. M.Holzner / Prof. Dr. W.Kinzelbach).

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For more information, follow Ute Klein on Instagram @utekleinmalerei

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Anne Ryan in 2022.

Anne Ryan is a contemporary artist who creates highly coloured constructed paintings of figures. Her subjects dance, party, pose and generally indulge themselves, in scenarios that draw on diverse sources from visual culture and the world around her.

Born in Limerick, Ireland, Anne Ryan studied at Limerick School of Art and Birmingham University and was Abbey Fellow in Painting at the British School at Rome in 2016. She has taught at a number of leading UK art schools, including Turps, and has exhibited work at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, CAPC Bordeaux and Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt. Anne lives and works in London and is represented by greengrassi.

Ryan is renowned for her ‘cutouts’ – virbant, three-dimensional paintings made from card, collage, canvas, ceramic and metal. Many of her cutouts focus on the physicality of the human form – often depicting groups of figures dancing, posing, swimming, frolicking in the woods, even cutting loose in a mosh pit – and are inspired as much by scenes found in nightclubs and cinema as by classical painting and sculpture.

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For more information, follow Anne Ryan on Instagram @anne_ryan_painter

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Closing Season 11, Caren Sullivan talks to curator, art advisor and mentor Eamonn Maxwell in 2022. If you are an art collector or a novice in collecting art, this is a great episode to watch.

Eamonn Maxwell has worked as a contemporary art curator and art advisor for more than 20 years. 

He curated numerous exhibitions across the world including the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. From 2009 to 2016, he was Director of Lismore Castle Arts, where I programmed significant exhibitions by leading international and Irish artists. In more recent times, he worked as a collection advisor to the Arts Council of Ireland, Goldsmiths and private art collectors.

He regularly lectures at universities and art schools in Ireland and internationally. He offers curating and advisory services to a huge variety of clients, including artists, art collectors, public galleries, universities and various arts related bodies. 

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For more information, follow Eamonn Maxwell on Instagram @eamonnmaxwell

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to interdisciplinary artist Susan Buttner in 2022.

Susan Buttner is an artist of emphatic morphology. Her artistic practice is a delicate evaluation of power relations, revealing tensions and forces by combining static elements, while highlighting the borderless, transgressive aspect of institutional critique. Working in sculptural form, painting, performance and film, a recent recipient of the Arts Council Ireland Visual Arts Bursary Award, PLATFORM 31 Bursary Award, Draíocht Incubate Residency Award, RHA Residency Award.  

Selected residencies 

2024 Tyrone Guthrie Residency Award, Fingal County Council

2023 Fingal Artist's Support Scheme Award

2023 Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency, Paris

2023 Loughshinney Residency Award, Fingal County Council

2022 Carlow Arts Festival Bursary Award

2022 PLATFORM 31 Bursary Award

Selected group and solo exhibitions

2024 Pallas Projects Studios, For Palestine Exhibition, The Bank, Digital Hub, Dublin

2024 Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts 194th Annual Exhibition, Dublin

2023 Love You My Sweaty, curated by Sara Muthi, The Library Project, Dublin

2023 Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts 193rd Annual Exhibition, Dublin

2022 Court House Gallery Annual Exhibition, Clare

2022 Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts 192nd Annual Exhibition, Dublin

Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_

For more information, follow Susan Buttner on Instagram @susanbuttnerstudio

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Victoria Cantons in 2022.

Victoria Cantons’ ongoing preoccupation with metaphysical themes; concepts of time, memory and personal identity lends her works their multi-layered subject matter, fuelled by a variety of historical and literary sources as well as her experiences being raised in a multicultural and multi-religious home, and being a gay and transgender woman. She was an only child to European immigrants who had both experienced war in the countries they had come from –her mother was from Madrid and Catholic, and her father was French Algerian born to Russian-Jewish and Basque parents. As a result Cantons has had memories of being different from the outset and the ability to accept, declare and celebrate oneself is an ongoing journey that for her, has been littered with mental anguish, trauma, and scars.

Cantons’ artistic output is presented in multiple mediums including painting, neon, poetry, text, performance, photographs and videos and sculpture. Cantons often uses text in the body of her work, and further probes language in her titles. At the core of the practice is an investigation of eternal questions: What is my position in the world? What are the nature of our relationships? And what is our purpose?

Her concept led work is autobiographical and confessional with political undercurrents and takes inspiration from art history, there are also references to religion, notably Christianity and Buddhism, philosophy, science and the classics. There is no creative formula, Cantons has an exploratory way of working. In the studio her questions are explored embracing experimentation, inspired spontaneity and discovery. There is a degree of surprise and unexpectedness in the work.

Cantons seeks to make sense of the world around her. The work deals with issues of the individual’s freedom, how people shape their beliefs, and the notion of who the individual can be. There is a search for confrontation with our internal schisms, and a lack of concern with “likability”. It’s about confronting what makes a person conflicted. Cantons has previously stated: “How can art allow the richness of the inner life to speak for itself? Art is a form of resistance, a way to reassess memory, to remember but also to reinvent, and that within these boundaries the truth can be alternately distorted or clarified.”

Cantons also considers her work to be an abstract self-portrait of sorts, with references to both her own personal history and histories of art that inform and inflect her work. On the subject of her identity Cantons has said: “I’m an artist, I'm a woman, I'm transgender, I'm labeled a trans (female, if I’m lucky) artist, but that trans-ness or any other aspect of my identity –the fact that I have a multi-national, cultural and religious background because of my parents and my upbringing– can't be tokenised”… to paraphrase the artist Alvaro Barrington: “I’m hoping that it becomes about an all-encompassing humanity and that it's also very individualised. I think a lot of people unfortunately have been pigeonholed into presenting their identity in a tokenised way, as the only thing that they can offer to the public’s imagination.”

Upcoming solo shows

2025

Title to be Announced, Niru Ratnam Gallery, London (UPCOMING Opens 5th June)

The Hour Before Sunrise / La Hora Bruja, cur. Christian Dominguez, Tube Gallery, Palma de Mallorca (UPCOMING Opens 21st March)

Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks @_ultravioletarttalks

For more information, follow Victoria Cantons @victoriacantons

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Mary-Ruth Walsh in 2022.

Dublin born, Mary-Ruth Walsh graduated from Goldsmiths College London (MA) and the National College of Art and Design (BA) Dublin. Walsh has participated in national and international exhibitions and the Artist’s Residency Programme in the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) Dublin; RHAs experimental drawing studio (Dublin); Aabenraa Artweek (Denmark) and Basekamp (Philadelphia). Mary-Ruth Walsh’s work is in the collection of Trinity College Dublin and private collections.

'My practice explores buildings from frenetic shopping centers to the desolate loneliness of empty spaces and how architecture affects the way we move and behave in the urban environment. I also see architecture as part of our identity. These explorations are realised in drawing, painting, film-making, sculpture-installation, critical writing and occasionally performance'.

Walsh’s solo and group exhibitions include IMMA (Dublin); Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane (Dublin); RHA (Dublin); CUBEOpen (Manchester); Oonagh Young Gallery (Dublin); Highlanes Gallery (Drogheda); Parlour (New York and Italy); Arts Centres (Wexford and Galway); Cross Gallery (Dublin); Goethe Institute (Dublin) and SCOPE (Miami). Awards include Create Ireland research bursary, Arts Council of Ireland’s Project, Travel Awards and most recently Visual Arts Bursary Award. She is co-founder of Drawing de-Centered https://www.drawingdecentered.com/

Her public work extends beyond the gallery space and is both permanent and temporary.

Selected awards, residencies

2024 and 2025 Zeitgeist-Ireland 2024 with Drawing deCentered, residencies and exhibitions in Bonn and Hamburg.

2022-23 Leitrim Sculpture Centre, residency and exhibition

2022 Centre Culture Irlandais, Paris Residency.

2022  Agility Award, Arts Council of Ireland.

Selected solo shows 

2021 Strangely Familiar Shades of Gray, Rathfarnham Castle, OPW, Dublin, solo exhibition of blueprints, drawings and sculptures that explores contemporary materiality, its relationship to the body and Eileen Gray. A book based on the exhibition with an essay by Jennifer Goff is forthcoming. 

2020-21 SKIN DEEP Arts Council of Ireland Touring Award, solo exhibition touring to Wexford Arts Centre, Highlanes Drogheda and Limerick City Gallery. This exhibition was accompanied by an award winning book with essays by Dr. Yvonne Scott and Katherine Waugh. The limited edition, hand-made book was by foldedleaf.ie

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For more information, follow Mary-Ruth Walsh on Instagram @maryruthwalsh

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Aisling Phelan in 2022.

Aisling Phelan is an Irish multi-disciplinary artist working across 3D animation, AI, video, sculpture, and live interactive technologies. Her work delves into the complex relationship between our online and offline identities and aims to highlight the ethical concerns and vulnerabilities of digital representation.

Heavily concerned with the body, Phelan explores the intricacies of corporeal identity and its relationship with technology. Examining the losses involved in physically replicating and digitally reconstructing her own body, she explores the abstraction, fragmentation, and validity of multiple identities. Ultimately, her practice questions the impact of current digital infrastructures on our social and mental well-being, and what it means to be human in an era of rapid technological advancement and pervasive social media influence.

In 2025, Phelan’s ‘Goodbye Body’ was screened on the Living Canvas, Europe’s largest digital art screen at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Her latest work ‘Surrogate Bodies’ was commissioned by Beta Festival and exhibited at the Digital Hub in Dublin in 2024. In 2023, Phelan created live installations for the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Rua Red and the National Concert Hall. In 2022, her degree show ‘Dual Reality’ was shortlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards and included in their annual exhibition. This work was also exhibited at 126 Gallery for the Galway International Arts Festival 2022. 

Phelan has been interviewed by RTE, The Irish Times, Dublin Inquirer, District Magazine and Totally Dublin, and her work has been selected for publications in Vice, Dublin Art Book Fair, Douglas Hyde Gallery, and other international publications. She is a co-curator of D.A.T.A, the Dublin Art and Technology Association and the founder of the Digital Artists Ireland Discord Community. 

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For more information, follow Aisling Phelan on Instagram @aisling_phelan

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Adam Gibney in 2022.

Adam Gibney is an interdisciplinary artist with numerous awards that include the Aileen MacKeogh Award, the Siamsa Tíre Emerging Artist Award, the IMOCA graduate residency award, and the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary award. His solo exhibitions include Can you breathe for me? (Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin, 2021 and The Dock, 2022), Projective Verse 9: Deep Breadths (Daegu Foundation of Culture, South Korea, 2017) and Euclid, I miss you…(Artbox, Dublin, 2016).

Other notable exhibitions include I am sitting in a room (Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, 2022), Embracing (The Lab Gallery, Dublin 2022), Scaffold (The Bomb Factory, London, 2019), The Voyage (CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2016) and Futures (Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 2014). In 2016, Adam represented Ireland in the V Moscow Biennale for Young Art – Deep Inside. 

In 2019, Adam launched his first public art project, Your Seedling Language, in St. Catherine’s School, Rush, Co. Dublin. He was commissioned to create a temporary public art project for Graft, a project curated by both the Glucksman Gallery and the National Sculpture Factory and he is currently working on a public art project for Fingal County Council.

Adam has recently completed a practice-based research master’s degree at the Technological University of Dublin. Drawing on his interdisciplinary approach to technology in fine art, interaction design, and emerging media practices, he has lectured at several universities, including the Technological University of Dublin, The National College of Art and Design, and The University of Limerick.

Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_

For more information, follow Adam Gibney on Instagram @adam.gibney1

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