This group exhibition showcases the work of Dee Hurley, Lisa O’Sullivan, and Holly Halligan, recent graduates from MTU Crawford College of Art & Design class of 2024. These three artists’ work will be on display in The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion from 12 September to 12 October, in keeping with Sample-Studios’ commitment to launch and support practitioners’ creative careers.
About the artists:
Holly Halligan graduated with a Degree in Fine Art from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design in 2024. Her work focuses on elements of sound and sensory experience through sculptural installation. Using metal and textiles, Holly experiments with methods of creating organic sound by manipulating convex shapes, utilising echoes and methods of trapping air. Holly’s installations have a strong physical quality, their presence in the space elevated through their scale and their manipulation of surrounding sounds creating a phenomenological link with the viewer’s embodied experience.
Dee Hurley holds a degree in Contemporary Applied Art from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design. She has worked as a bookbinder for Barbara Hubert’s Bookbindery in Cork, finding her way back to art through the part-time Certificate in Art Textile with CCAD. Dee’s current practice is centred around botanical elements, seeking to capture and portray their uniquely complex form and structure. Underpinned by the sadness of biodiversity loss, Dee’s work explores the hope for a newfound connection with our natural world as a means to bring about positive social change.
Lisa O’Sullivan is a visual artist and musician based in Cork City. She graduated from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design with a First Class Honours in Fine Art in 2024. Her work encompasses a variety of media including printmaking, drawing, sound, video, and photography. In this exhibition, Lisa draws inspiration from folklore and ritual using sound, video, and installation to evoke the cultural memory of deforestation in Ireland during the Cromellian wars of the 17th century. The work conveys a sense of hope that re-enchantment with nature through folklore could be a potent agent of change and renewal.