Ultraviolet Art Talks

On this special episode, Caren Sullivan talks to singer Ais (now known as Asha Ari) in 2022. Asha Ari has also a video performing, you can watch it on @_ultravioletarttalks_

Asha Ari, who was named as Hot For 2023 this year by Hotpress, is a singer-songwriter from Dublin, Ireland.

She is half Ghanaian, half Irish, and grew up in Blanchardstown, Dublin. She has been actively performing in the Dublin music scene since her teens, and has released many singles and an EP entitled ‘Freedom’, and impactful music videos.

Asha Ari's music brings people together. Her music combines elements of Pop, Soul, and R&B to create uniquely catchy and relatable songs. Her song writing inspirations stem from growing up bi-racial, self-love, believing in yourself, spreading positivity and being true to oneself.

She successfully ran her first showcase Blanchardstown Resonance in March 2024 in The Draiocht. In April 2024 she had successful headline show in Whelan's which had a great turn out. She was featured on Songs of Ireland on RTE One on May 2024 where she performed and put her own twist on Raglan Road alongside Mike Hanrahan and Pat Short.

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For more information on tours dates and album releases follow Asha Ari on Instagram @ashaarimusic

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Soňa Šmédková in 2022.

Soňa Šmédková is a Czech emerging curator and multidisciplinary artist based in Galway, Ireland. Watch a teaser from this Interview @_ultravioletarttalks_

Soňa gained First-class Honours in Master of Arts in Creative Practice at the School of Design and Creative Arts, ATU, Galway. In the fourth year of her undergrad studies, she was an integral member of the student-led curating team for an exhibition for GMIT contemporary art graduates Not a Degree Show, Printworks, funded by Galway City Arts Council.

She was awarded an Agility Award by the Arts Council of Ireland in 2021. In early 2022 she became a member of the Board of Directors at 126 Artist–Run Gallery and the same year she was a curator of an exhibition A Remix of Change at 126 Gallery as part of the Galway International Arts Festival. Soňa’s work was recently exhibited in a group show DÉAD in Transmediale, Berlin under the Creative Pathways Programme, funded by the Irish Embassy Berlin and Goethe Institute Ireland. The show travelled to Dublin and was launched as part of the Culture Night 2023 at Goethe Institute Ireland. She also showed in Brussels at the European Parliament as part of Mental Health Day and in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Soňa's practice investigates identity, in-between spaces, and disruption through the lens of migration and abstract painting. She works with a range of media, often blending digital and physical artefacts to create installations that evoke a sense of entanglement. Her creative process is rooted in migration studies, specifically examining the political regimes of Eastern Europe, which shapes both her art and curatorial work.

As a curator, she is passionate about supporting underrepresented artists and those working at the intersection of technology and contemporary practices. She has previously served as a director of the 126 Artist-Run Gallery, which deepened her engagement with artist-run spaces and collective curatorial efforts. 

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For more information, follow Soňa Šmédková on Instagram @sonasmedkova

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Julieta Aranda in 2022. This interview has a video teaser you can watch @_ultravioletarttalks_

Julieta Aranda born in Mexico City, Mexico, is a conceptual artist that lives and works in Berlin and New York City. She received a BFA in filmmaking from the School of Visual Arts (2001) and an MFA from Columbia University (2006), both in New York. Her explorations span installation, video, and print media, with a special interest in the creation and manipulation of artistic exchange and the subversion of traditional notions of commerce through art making.

Aranda's complex body of work exists outside the boundaries of the object, and is characterized by the struggle of catching sight of elusive concepts such as time, circulation, and imagination. Her installations and temporary projects, which often examine social interactions and the role that the circulation of objects plays in the cycles of production and consumption, are intensely site-specific. Much of her work takes up the concept of time, sometimes to consider alternative notions of the temporal experience, and other times to approach the arbitrariness of time and freedom from time.

Julieta Aranda has been actively collaborating on e-flux since 2003, which is a publishing platform, archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and cultural enterprise founded by Anton Vidokle in 1998. Aranda is both a contributor and editor of e-flux journal, and in collaboration with Vidokle, has produced several e-flux art projects that explore unusual models for the circulation and distribution of art.

Her work has been shown in internationally renowned institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami(2009); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009); the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo (2010); and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain (2010), as well as at international art festivals such as the Liverpool Biennial(2010); the Kassel Documenta, Germany (2012); and the Shanghai Biennale (2012).

Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_

For more information, follow Julieta Aranda on Instagram @julietaranda

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On this fascinating episode, closing Season 10, Caren Sullivan Talks to Architect Donal Lally and writer, architect, educator David Capener from ANNEX in 2022. You can also watch a glimpse of the interview on Ultraviolet Art Talks Instagram (on link).

ANNEX is a collaboration of artists, architects, and urban researchers born and/or based in Ireland who came together to curate the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021. ANNEX explores the material and cultural implications of large technical systems for the built environment with reference to architecture, art, computer science, and gaming platforms. Members include Sven Anderson, Alan Butler, David Capener, Donal Lally, Clare Lyster and Fiona McDermott.

David Capener is a theorist, educator, writer, architect, and designer. His practice critically examines the spaces produced by our contemporary technological condition. He has taught on the masters programme at Queen’s University School of Architecture and the Belfast School of Architecture at Ulster University. He has written for The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and numerous other print and online publications.

Donal Lally is an architect and co-founder of the architectural office zero-degree machine [z-dm]. He has recently published articles in Strelka Magazineand Archplus, and given talks at the Floating University (Berlin), Berlin University of the Arts, and at the UCD School of Architecture. Donal is an assistant lecturer in design theory at the TU Dublin School of Creative Arts.

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For more information, follow Donal Lally nd David Capener on Instagram @donal_lally @annex_irl @david.capener

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Dr.Frank Wasser in 2022. Watch a glimpse of the Interview on Ultraviolet Art Talks Instagram (on link).

Dr. Frank Wasser is an Irish artist, writer, educator and researcher at TATe, based between Vienna and London. He is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

Originally from the Liberties, Dublin, Ireland, Wasser holds a PhD at the University of Oxford in Fine Art, BA in Painting and an MFA in Sculpture from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland. Wasser has exhibited and lectured internationally: most recently at Jerwood Arts (London) Tate Modern and Tate Britain (London) Villa Empain (Brussels) Damian and the Love Guru (Brussels) Baltic Centre of Contemporary Art (Newcastle) In December 2020 he will publish a book with the imprint MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE. Wasser was the recipient of the Inger Lawrence Award (2019) and the Art Council Ireland Visual Artist Bursary (2018) Wasser has been an invited visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art and University of Reading.

Most recent Exhibition,

‘Debt’ Annual Exhibition of the members of the Salzburger Kunstverein 2024

14 December 2024 – 16 February 2025

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For more information, Follow Dr. Frank Wasser on Instagram @frankwasserartist

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Joe Duggan in 2021.

Joe Duggan is a Limerick born artist living and working in Buckinghamshire. He studied at the Royal College of Art London gaining an M.A. in Fine Art (Photography). His artistic practice includes sculpture, photography, video, publishing and installation. 

Through these various media his work considers ideas of value and identity. Focusing on themes of the family, the artists role in society and the influence of hierarchical systems, including religion, on culture. Across his projects Duggan’s work is inflected with a wry wit and a playful DIY aesthetic in which he conveys deeper lying concerns. He also curates and produces exhibitions.

Most recent show : 2025: Irish Art Now, 7 - 28 Jan, Embassy of Ireland, 17 Grosvenor Place, London, UK. co-curated by Joe duggan and Orla Jackson.

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For more information, follow Joe Duggan on Instagram @joe_duggan_artist

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to psychic artist and energy healer, Karen Donnellan in 2021.

Karen Donnellan (they/she) is a psychic artist and energy healer. After earning a Bachelor of Design in Glass from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and a MFA in Glass from the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, they served as Director of the National Casting Center Glass Studios; Associate Professor of Glass; and Chair of the Sculpture/Dimensional Studies Program at Alfred University, NY from 2014-2022.

Donnellan has received numerous residencies, most notably at the Toledo Museum of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, the Creative Glass Center of America, and Pilchuck Glass School. Their artwork, encompassing sculpture, installation, music, words, and video, is held in public and private collections and has been shown at venues internationally, including the Smithsonian Museum, Corning Museum of Glass, Tushanwan Museum, and the Museum of American Glass.

As an energy healer, Donnellan is a practitioner and teacher of the Rising Star, Prema Birthing, Reiki, and Seichem modalities. They are also an active member of AerachAiteachGaelach, a collective of LGBTQ+ Irish speaking artists, researchers and activists. They are currently based on the West coast of Ireland in Co. Sligo, with a studio at The Model.

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For more information, follow Karen Donnellan on Instagram @cosmicwetness

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Maura Walsh Finnegan in 2021, where we get a glimpse of her creative process in producing her intriguing and poignant pieces.

Maura Finnegan is an artist based in the West of Ireland, graduate of the MA Creative Practice course at ATU

Her work investigates the unspoken dialogue of furtiveness in the human psyche and trauma in its many forms. Her practice is sculptural assemblage, the method of communicating the effects of prolonged suffering and trauma is through materiality. Familiar domestic objects associated with the female become ’embodiments of pain & loss.’ Nylon tights, bedding, bandage, undergarments, upholstery foam are some of the materials she uses. Her soft/sculptural forms are exposed to an almost violent deconstructive creative process – ripping, tearing, knotting, slicing, piercing, burning etc – exposing the bruised contents. The thread of materiality undergoing this transmutational force both reveals & conceals simultaneously.

Artist Statement:

"Creativity shows up differently in every Artist’s studio.

This Artist’s Creativity was not a cheery sort. This Artist’s Creativity was a beast with an unfiltered, unapologetic darkness within.

For had it not been ignored, suppressed and jeered at for countless years, waiting?

One night, Creativity spat at the Artist;

“Bring me the stuff of your ordinary life, your daily grind, your lived experience. Bring me the

materials you discard, the dirt, the grime, your tears and pain. Bring me the labours of your mother,

grandmothers and all your history – and I will show you, Artist, who you really are …."

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For more information, follow Maura Finnegan on Instagram @biddy_turner

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan Talks to photographer Ishmael Claxton in 2021, where we deep dive into his inspirations to create incredible photographs.

Ishmael Claxton was born in New York and living in Dublin for 10 years. Ishmael turned to photography as a means of expression and embarked on his career as a professional visual artist. He continues to challenge his audience by raising awareness about issues like in ‘Migration/ Integration’ series and Capall Gang series. By holding a mirror up to society, his aim is to make sense of the every changing world.

Ishmael is one of the cofounders of ÍOVA Club, a photographer-led club that gives voice to image makers. The group has presented three Culture Night group shows, presentations, gallery visits all to help build the photography community in Ireland.

Ishmael has exhibited widely, both in Ireland and internationally. In 2023 his work was included in 39 exhibitions which included Outset Gallery, 126 Galway, Rua Red Gallery, Carlow Visual, and Ulster Museum. His portrait of artist Seán Hillen was selected for the Lens Culture Portrait Choice Awards 2023. His work was featured in a solo exhibition in Gallery X, Dublin in 2022, Round Rabbit, Dublin in 2023 and National Concert Hall and the Irish Georgian Society in 2024. 

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For more information, follow Ishmael Claxton on Instagram @ishmaelclaxtonphotos

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to multidisciplinary artist Alan Phelan in 2021.

Alan Phelan works in sculpture, photography, film, museum interventions, public art and collaborations with other artists, writers and curators. Born Dublin, Phelan received BA, Dublin City University, 1989 and MFA, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, 1994.

Selected exhibitions include: Casino Marino, Dublin; Luan, Athlone; The Molesworth Gallery, Dublin; Void, Derry; Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris; RHA, Dublin; The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon; The Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, Irish Museum of Modern Art, The LAB, Dublin; TBG+S, Dublin; LCGA, EVA International, Limerick; Solstice, Navan; Chapter, Cardiff; Bonn Kunstmuseum; Detroit Stockholm; Treignac Projet, France; Bozar, Brussels: ŠKUC, Ljubljana; SKC Gallery, Belgrade; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Public works include Kevin Street Library; Fr Collins Park, IMMA formal gardens and Void Offsites, Derry.

His most recent public work is for DCC/Sculpture Dublin, the O’Connell Plinth Commission, a temporary sculpture outside City Hall, Dublin which was moved to the TU Dublin Grangegorman campus on longterm loan.

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For more information, follow Alan Phelan on Instagram @phelanlikealan

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