On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Miguel Martin in 2021.

Miguel is a Belfast-born artist exploring identity, the uncanny, and liminal spaces through drawing, photography, sculpture, and installation. His work investigates how digital masks and everyday anomalies reshape perception, blending sincerity and irony to question authenticity in a digitised world. Collaboration and playful exchanges of imagery are central to his practice, creating dynamic spaces where meaning and connection remain fluid.

Visual artist, born Belfast, 1985
University of Ulster 2004 – 2008

Lives and works in Hastings
Learning and Participation assistant, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2024 Between Two Worlds, 5th Floor Gallery, East Sussex College, Hastings

2023 REAL MAGIC, Aspace Gallery, East Sussex College, Hastings

2020 Fire in the middle, The Naughton Gallery, Queen’s Univeristy, Belfast

Selected group Exhibitions

2024 The Last Off-Site Show On Earth At Plague and Everywhere (pt. 2), Plague Space, Krasnodar, Russia

2022 Open Plan, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne

2020 In A Rainbow of Coalitions, The MAC, Belfast

2020 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, Leicester Gallery, De Montfort University 

2020 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, The Salisbury Museum, Salisbury

Online Group Exhibitions

2024 The Last Off-Site Show On Earth At Plague and Everywhere (pt.1), Plague Space, Krasnodar, Russia

2021 Big Fungus, Soloshow.online

2021 No-Body’s Room, The Room Projects, Paris

2020 ANNO ∞ DOMINI, Soloshow.online

2020 The Days Are Just Packed, The Pool, Heybeliada, Istanbul

2020 Wellnow.wtf

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For more information, follow Miguel Martin on Instagram @mmiguelmartinn

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Sarah O'Brien in 2021.

Sarah O’Brien, born in Cork, 1980.

BA Painting, CCAD, Cork, 2003. MFA Painting NCAD, Dublin, 2007. PgDip Third Level Learning and Teaching, DIT 2012

Lives and works in Kinsale, Co.Cork. 

Selected shows include: NEW LIGHT, Lewis Glucksman Gallery (2020), RHA OPEN 2020 (Invited Artist), PERIPHERIES Open 2019, Gorey Art School, Gorey, Everything is in everything, Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Wish Me a Wonder, Waterford (all 2019) and STREAM PROJECT, Limerick (2018).

Sarah O’Brien’s work is in the collection of The Office of Public Works and has been funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and the RHA.

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For more information, follow Sarah O'Brien on Instagram @sarah_o__brien

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Emma Ferrer from her studio in Italy in 2021.

Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer was born in Morges, Switzerland and grew up in Florence, Italy where her conscience became replete with a visceral exposure to Medieval and Renaissance iconography. As a young painter, Ferrer also spent extensive time in Spain where she became drawn to the works of Francisco de Zurbaràn, and Symbolist painter Julio Romero de Torres.

Among her other strong influences are Goya, Manet, Giorgio de Chirico, Edvard Munch, Arnold Böcklin, and Félix Vallotton. Early in her artistic career Ferrer pursued a classical education in drawing and painting.

One of the youngest students ever accepted into the academy, at 18 years of age Ferrer enrolled in the Advanced Painting program at the Florence Academy of Art, a traditional atelier where she would be imbued in the techniques, methodologies, and theories of the great masters. There, Ferrer undertook exhaustive studies from of the live figure, studying human anatomy in depth as well as becoming fluent in classical materials in drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Upon finishing school, Ferrer moved to New York where she would work in contemporary art galleries as a curator and international artist liaison, as well as become the administrative director of a Democratic Super PAC specializing in the sale of contemporary art as a means of political fundraising. During this time, ferrer also gathered experience working in production and art direction for music videos and short films. Ultimately, she would return to live and work, devoting herself to her art practice, at her home in Camaiore, Italy.

Ferrer received her MFA from Central Saint Martins in London in 2024. Throughout the course of her education and professional years she has been mentored by, studied under, and worked for artists such as Vincent Desiderio, Golucho, Will Cotton, Cynthia Talmadge, Ivan Theimer, and Emanuele Giannelli. She has curated and assistant-curated the works of Zac Posen, Manolo Blahnik, 24th, 25th, and 28th Venice Biennale artist Eugenio Pardini, and 54th Venice Biennale artist Sofia Cacciapaglia for institutions in the US and Spain.

Emma Ferrer currently has a solo exhibition 

The Scapegoat, Sapar Contemporary, New York City 9 Jan - Feb 15 (2025)

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For more information, follow Emma Ferrer on Instagram @ekhferrer

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to writer, researcher and editor Michaële Cutaya and emerging curator and artist Sona Šmédková in 2021.

Michaele Cutaya is a writer, researcher and editor on art living in County Galway. Her reviews and essays have been published in Irish Arts Review, The Stinging Fly and Art Monthly amongst others.

She collaborates with artists towards specific art projects and residencies. She continues a contextual writing and discursive practice in the west of Ireland and has regularly participated in public discussions on art and its broader social and political framework. She has been invited to present ongoing research on writing and publications in universities and art colleges. She was co-founding editor of Fugitive Papers (2011- 2013) and editor of Circa Art Magazine (2016- 2022).

Her work has been supported by the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary in 2021 and 2022.

Sona Smédková is a Czech emerging curator and multidisciplinary artist based in Galway, Ireland. Sona 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. Sona's work was recently exhibited in a group show DEAD 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 Šona Šmédková and Michaële Cutaya on Instagram @sonasmedkova @michaeleingalway

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Closing Season 8 on this special episode, Caren Sullivan Talks to artist Isabel Nolan in 2021.

Isabel Nolan has an expansive practice that incorporates sculptures, paintings, textile works, photographs, writing and works on paper. Her subject matter is similarly comprehensive, taking in cosmological phenomena, religious reliquaries, Greco-Roman sculptures and literary/historical figures, examining the behaviour of humans and animals alike.

These diverse artistic investigations are driven by intensive research, but the end result is always deeply personal and subjective. Exploring the “intimacy of materiality”, Nolan’s work ranges from the architectural – steel sculptures that frame or obstruct our path – to small handmade objects in clay, hand-tufted wool rugs illuminated with striking cosmic imagery, to drawings and paintings using humble gouache or colouring pencils. In concert, they feel equally enchanted by and afraid of the world around us, expressing humanity’s fear of mortality and deep need for connection as well as its startling achievements in art and thought.

Driven by “the calamity, the weirdness, horror, brevity and wonder of existing alongside billions of other preoccupied humans”, her works give generous form to fundamental questions about the ways the chaos of the world is made beautiful or given meaning through human activity.

In 2026, Nolan will represent Ireland at the 61st Venice Biennale, with Georgina Jackson and The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art as the curator and Cian O’Brien as producer. In 2025, Nolan will participate in the 13th Liverpool Biennial, Bedrock, curated by Marie-Anne McQuay (7 June – 14 September). 

Isabel Nolan lives and works in Dublin.

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For more information, follow Isabel Nolan o Instagram @nolanisabel @kerlingallery @templebargalleryandstudios

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to curator Séamus McCormack in 2021.

Séamus McCormack has developed curatorial projects both in Ireland and the UK including at Luan Gallery, Athlone; ArtBox, Dublin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; The Bomb Factory, London; Lewisham Arthouse, London; No Show Space, London; The LAB, Dublin and Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford.

He curates Commonage projects space in Bethnal Green, London presenting solo exhibitions with artists including Hugo Brazao, Nat Faulkner, Hannah Lim, Tami Soji-Akinyemi, Tim Spooner and Taro Qureshi.

He is Senior Curator, New Contemporaries working on exhibitions, events, talks and performances in venues across the UK including at the South London Gallery, ICA, Camden Arts Centre, Leeds Art Gallery, BALTIC and Firstsite. He was previously Assistant Curator at both the Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin working on group exhibitions such as ‘Electronic Superhighway’; ‘Intellectual Barbarians: The Kibbo Kift Kindred’; ‘Primal Architecture’; ‘Traces’ and solo shows with artists including Christopher Williams, Willie Doherty, Haroon Mirza, Harun Farocki and Alice Maher. 

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For more information, follow Séamus McCormack on Instagram @seamusmccormack

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Emma Roche in 2021. Her unique paintings has caught my immediate attention back in 2021, here she talks about her unique method of knitting paint.

Education

M.A. in Visual Arts Practices, I.A.D.T. Dublin, 2010 

B.A. in Fine Art Painting, N.C.A.D., Dublin, 2006

Turps Banana Art School, London 2016-2019

Solo and Two-Person Exhibitions  

2023

LOOP, Emergence Award, Wexford Arts Centre

Lined Out, Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray

2021  

OCHRE, 2-person exhibition with Ciara Roche, Wexford Arts Centre 

2021  

Spiders and Cheerleaders, Ground Floor Gallery, The Complex, Dublin  

2018  

Forward Slash, The Lab Gallery, Dublin  

Selected Group Exhibitions  

2024

What Now?, PM/AM Gallery, London

Le Vernissage, Partie Deux, Brigitte Mulholland, Paris

2023

John Moore’s Painting Prize Exhibition, Walker Gallery, Liverpool

2022

GENERATION 2022, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny

Zurich Portrait Prize Exhibition, The National Gallery, Dublin and Crawford Gallery, Cork

Small Night Zine, Catalyst Arts, Belfast and Garter Lane, Waterford. Curated by James Merrigan 

2020  

The Sky is Blue, VISUAL Carlow, selected by Katie Holten  

Teaching

2022 Guest Lecturer, The National College of Art and Design, Dublin (MFA Painting)

2022 Guest Speaker Troubling the Museum on The Culture File Debate, RTE Lyric FM

2022 Guest Lecturer, Sligo IT, BA Painting

2020- 2022 PeripheriesMEET Mentor, Gorey School of Art, Wexford

Guest Lecturer, IADT, Dublin (BA Painting)

2019 Guest Lecturer Wexford Campus, Carlow IT

2018, 2019 ColART and TFAC Artist Lecture Series, London

2017-2022 Co-curator PERIPHERIES exhibition programme with James Merrigan, Gorey School of Art

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For more information, follow Emma Roche on Instagram @emmaroche83 @brigittemulhollandparis

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Joseph Heffernan in 2021.

Joseph Heffernan is an Irish artist based in Backwater Artists Studios, Cork. His exquisite paintings transports the viewer to a different, magic era.

Education

2013-2016: MFA(Painting), NCAD, Dublin.

2012-2013: Creative Ceramics Level 6, Colaiste Stiofain Naoife.

2005-2009: Hons BA(Fine Art), Crawford College of Art and Design.

Selected Exhibitions Solo

2023: A Thousand Years, Studio 12 Gallery, Backwater Artists Studios, Cork

2022: The Golden Age, Blue House Gallery, Schull, West Cork

2020: There were Strange Gatherings, Ashford Gallery, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin

2018: Borderland/Memento, Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford (2-Person)

Selected Group

Upcoming: 

Backwater Members Show, Lavit Gallery, Cork

2023: 193rd Annual Open, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin

2023: Displacement and Belonging – Home, RUA RED, Dublin

2023: Annual Members Show, Lavit Gallery, Cork

2022: Winter Show, Lavit Gallery, Cork

2022: Sample Studios Annual Members Show, Lord Mayors Pavilion, Cork

2022: Closer, Lavit Gallery, Cork

2022: Annual Members Show, Lavit Gallery, Cork

2021: Sample Studios Winter Members Show, Lord Mayors Pavilion, Cork

2021: Annual Members Show, Lavit Gallery, Cork

2021: Backwater 30th Anniversary Exhibition, Blue House Gallery, Schull

2020: 190th Annual Open, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin

Awards

2023 Cork City Council Individual Artists Bursary

2021 Arts Council Agility Award

2020 Contemporary Irish Arts Society Award for a work of Distinction

Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_

For more information, follow Joseph Heffernan on Instagram @josephheffernan.art

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist, educator, Taffina Flood in 2021.

Taffina Flood was born in Dublin. She has exhibited widely in Ireland and abroad, and her work is held in many notable public and private collections. 

In addition to painting and printmaking, Taffina lectures at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin.

Taffina’s art is characterised by dense, evocative, jewel-like colour patterns. Her prints for Behaviour & Attitudes were devised as a series of imagined windows into the language and forms of gardens – crossing the memory of actual remembered gardens with dream-like glimpses into nature, experienced as an idealised abstract force.

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For more information, follow Taffina Flood on Instagram @floodtaffina

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On this episode, Caren Sullivan talk to the duo Austin Hearne and Glenn McQuaid from Satin Shadow in 2021.

Satin Shadow is a Goth, Industrial music duo by artist Austin Hearne and filmmaker and producer Glenn McQuaid.

Concerns around the occupation of Ireland by the Roman Catholic Church are at the heart of Austin Hearne's practice.The majesty and misery of this institution are the poles which Hearne operates within.

Photography is at the root of his practice, using this medium in its most experimental and expansive form to create performances, installations, films, music and mise-en-scéne. Playing with fact and fiction Hearne creates worlds, characters and scenarios to satirise, demonise and embellish.

Alongside all this he brings in the stuff of the painting and decorating industry to make wallpapered interiors decorated with painted photographic objects and furniture.

Austin Hearne is supported by the Arts Council Bursary Award 2020,2021, 2022.

Recent projects include Requiem for Raymo (solo) at the RHA Gallery (which included a weekly performance as part of the installation.), (Nov 22 to Jan 23). His film Whispers was shown as part of the Gaze Film Festival where it won Best Irish Short (2022).

Glenn McQuaid is an Irish film director. He is known for his feature film debut I Sell The Dead and his involvement in the audio play anthology series Tales From Beyond the Pale, both of which were produced by frequent collaborator Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix. He has also directed a segment of anthology horror film V/H/S.

McQuaid began his career at Glass Eye Pix, where he performed visual effects on films such as The Roost (2005) and The Last Winter(2006). Inspired by the muted reception of one of his short films, he made his feature film debut, I Sell the Dead (2008), more comedic. He cites David Cronenberg as an influence. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 73% approval score based on 44 reviews. After I Sell the Dead, he worked on the segment Tuesday the 17th in V/H/S, a 2012 horror anthology film. The short was inspired by his enjoyment of early 1980s slasher films. In 2014, he directed The Trouble with Dad, a segment in another horror anthology film, Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear.

McQuaid collaborated with Fessenden again on the audio play anthology series Tales From Beyond the Pale, which he co-created.

Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_

For more information, follow Satin Shadow, Austin Hearne and Glenn McQuaid on Instagram @satinshadow @austinhearne @glenn_mcquaid

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