Graduate Associate Membership Award Winner, Lily O’ Shea presents her first major solo exhibition ‘Slow Puncture’ in The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion.

Artist Statement

A slow puncture is a small hole in a vehicle’s tyre which causes air to escape gradually. It can go unnoticed for a prolonged period of time and could possibly reduce road control. This work deals with the issue of sustaining an art practice while experiencing burnout. It is based on the occurrence of a slow puncture and its potential to drain one’s creative abilities. This has resulted in a series of reflections which examine the urge to appear productive while burning out – each element of the exhibition representing pockets of time or proof of production.

About the Artist

Lily O’Shea (b. 1997) is an artist and writer based in Cork concerned with political questions surrounding the contemporary labourer. Lily’s work utilises performance, sculpture, and text to expand on the materiality of precarity while foregrounding various anxieties endured by the modern-day worker. Lily is currently a graduate resident at 126 Artist-Run Gallery, Galway, a graduate resident at Backwater Artists Group, Cork, and recently completed a desk research residency at The Guesthouse Project, Cork. Recent group exhibitions include; a passive house, a publication initiated by Cork based curator Ali O’Shea involving artists Fiona Kelly, Dori O’Connell, Mary O’Leary and Lily O’Shea (2020); Rhetoric Degree Showcase, Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork, Ireland (2020); Villa the End, Berlin Gallery Weekend, Charlottenburg, Germany (2019). Recent writing include; ‘Laggard’, a text featured on The Paper website, The Paper, (2021); ‘Collaborative Survival in Precarious Times’, a text featured in Hypertext (Issue 06), Bloomers Magazine, (2020).

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