Biography
Deirdre O’Mahony is an artist currently researching a PhD through practice at the University of Brighton titled New Ecologies between Rural Life and Visual Culture in the West of Ireland: History, Context, Position, and Art Practice. Selected solo exhibitions include re-presentations, The Burren College Gallery 2009, Local News, Siamsa Tire Gallery Tralee 2008, Viscaux, Galway Arts Festival 2006, Wall, Context Gallery Derry and LCGA, 2002 and WRAP, Galway Arts Centre 2000. Group exhibitions: 10,000 to 50, IMMA Dublin 2008, Eire/Land McMullen Museum Boston, 2003. Public art projects include X-PO in Kilnaboy, Co Clare 2007-8, and Cross Land, 2007 for Clare County Council’s Ground Up programme of public art in rural Ireland.
Awards include an international Pollock-Krasner Foundation fellowship, 1995, and bursaries and project funding from The Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíonn, 1997/2001/2006/2007/2010. She was joint co-ordinator of the Shifting Ground Partnership project and Conference on Cultural Strategies & Initiatives for Rural Contexts and is a full time lecturer in Painting at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology.
Recent presentations include the Public and Participative Art: Performance in Everyday Life international symposium at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, 2009 papers delivered by Grant Kester, (USA) Ray Langenbach (USA) Jay Koh (Malaysia) Anne Douglas and Chris Freemantal (UK) Deirdre O’Mahony (Ire) and Erik Sandalin (Nor).
