Ultraviolet Art Talks

Ultraviolet Art Talks Season 18 EP05 Sharon Murphy

On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to Artist and Curator Sharon Murphy in her studio in 2024. Curious about what is like inside an artist studio? Watch full episode here [https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBGuzPNsFbe/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==]! Sharon Murphy is a visual artist and curator based between Dublin and Paris whose practice encompasses photography, video and installation. Drawing on a background in theatre and informed by psychoanalysis and magic realism, her work provokes viewers to question what they are seeing, bringing their own histories and narratives to ‘complete’ the meaning of the image. Balancing the theoretical and the experiential (including that of the viewer), Murphy is especially drawn to the inherent binary nature of photography - the tensions of the medium between its real/indexical nature and its unreal/constructed nature. The photograph is simultaneously both record/truth and constructed/staged subject to multiple interpretations, perceptions and distortions by both maker and viewer.   Murphy investigates the boundaries between real and fictive spaces within the pictorial frame: concentrating on recurring motifs of theatre curtains; outdoor carousels; circus tents; performative sites; city parks; and empty stages. These scenes become the point of departure for a wider exploration of the tension between hidden and revealed, negative and positive, illusion and disillusion, the uncanny and the unremarkable. Recent exhibitions: Photo Museum Ireland, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris [https://www.instagram.com/centreculturelirlandais/], GOMA, Waterford, Limerick City Gallery, Draíocht, National Gallery of Ireland, RHA [https://www.instagram.com/rha.arts/], Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, Halftone, PhotoIreland, Loop Festival, Barcelona [https://www.instagram.com/loopbarcelona_festival/].  Current exhibitions 2025/26: Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (solo), University Gallery UMAss Boston [https://www.instagram.com/umassboston/]. Murphy is a co-founding member of Shell/Ter Artist Collective (S/TAC). Her work is held is in private + public collections. She works between Dublin and Paris.  Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_ [https://www.instagram.com/_ultravioletarttalks_/] For more information, follow Sharon Murphy on Instagram @sharon_murphy_atelier [https://www.instagram.com/sharon_murphy_atelier/] @sharon_murphy_curator [https://www.instagram.com/sharon_murphy_curator/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ultraviolet Art Talks Season 18 EP04 Niamh McCann

On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Niamh McCann at her studio (Temple Bar Gallery and Studios [https://www.instagram.com/templebargalleryandstudios/])I n 2024. Always curious about what is like to be inside an artist studio? Watch full Instagram episode here [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_al5s8M795/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==]. Niamh McCann’s work is a considered, individual voice in contemporary Irish art; effortlessly correlating strands of three-dimensional work, painting/drawing and installation. This in itself is unpredictable and frequently humorous, as evidenced in the playful use of appropriated political figuration in her body of work, Furtive Tears. Layering and re-coding the given image, figure or cultural trope, a quasi-deified equilibrium is achieved when juxtaposed with globalised cultural imagery. McCann is recipient of the Norman Houston Commission Award, Washington DC and RHA Stephen McKenna Studio Fellowship. Commissions include Bile Buadha a large scale outdoors sculptural work at Termini Complex, Sandyford and PAVILION/MOTHER’S LAMENT an outdoors sculptural work at National Museum of Ireland, Museum of Country Life. In partnership with Logan Sisley and National Museum of Ireland, McCann co-curated the exhibition Tableaux Vivants at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane looking at collection artworks as totemic messengers. The exhibition was centered around a series of McCann’s work acquired by the Hugh Lane.  Artist residencies include Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris, Fire Station Studio Production Residency, Dublin, Penthouse Artist Residency, Brussels, Cemeti Arthouse, Indonesia and HIAP residency in Helsinki, Finland. [https://www.instagram.com/hiap_suomenlinna/] Solo exhibitions include Hairline Crack [a dialogue] at the Rudolf-Scharpf-Galerie des Wilhelm Hack Museum, Germany, Furtive Tears at Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane,La Perruque (Protest Song) at MAC Belfast and Just Left of Copernicus in Visual Carlow. Group exhibitions include: Future Perfect, Rubicon-Projects Brussels and Changing States, BOZAR, Belgium. Niamh McCann works are currently exhibiting on the 25th Biennale of Sydney [https://www.instagram.com/biennalesydney/](14 March - 14 June 2026). The Biennale of Sydney is one of the leading international contemporary art events. It plays an indispensable role in Australia’s engagement with the world, and a meaningful role in the life of the nation. Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ulravioletarttalks_ [https://www.instagram.com/_ultravioletarttalks_/] For more information, follow Niamh McCann on Instagram @niamhmccnn [https://www.instagram.com/niamhmccnn/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ultraviolet Art Talks Season 18 EP03 Vanessa Jones

On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Vanessa Jones at her studio in 2024. Always curios about what an artist studio looks like? Watch full Instagram interview here [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8cCtUyMf70/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==]. Born in Tennessee, Dublin-based artist Vanessa Jones received her BA in Fine Arts in 2003 from the George Washington University in Washington DC. In 2021, she completed her MFA at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin. As a graduate, Vanessa was shortlisted for the RDS Art Prize in 2021 and received the R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award and the RDS Mason, Hayes & Curran LLP Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency Award. Her portraits have been shortlisted in the Zurich Portrait Prize at the National Gallery Ireland in 2020, 2021 and 2022 where her work was awarded Highly Commended in 2021. She has her work included in Art Jakarta 2022; Mata Irlandia 2022 in the World Trade Centre, Jakarta; the OPW exhibition Person Presence Perception, Portlaoise; Páipéar at Hangtough Contemporary, Dublin; Prosopopoeia at Molesworth Gallery, Dublin; and Draíocht’ [https://www.instagram.com/draiocht_blanchardstown/]s you breathe differently down here curated by Amanda Coogan, Blanchardstown. She was also the winner of the inaugural self-portrait Sequested Prize, [https://www.instagram.com/thesequestedprize/] 2021 based in London. Her work is in the OPW National Collection as well as private and corporate collections in both Ireland and abroad. Vanessa is also one of the 2022 Next Generation Artists Awardees from the Arts Council Ireland and is currently a part-time lecturer in the Painting Department at NCAD [https://www.instagram.com/ncad_painting/]. For more interviews, follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_ [https://www.instagram.com/_ultravioletarttalks_/] For more information, follow Vanessa Jones on Instagram @vanessaleejones81 [https://www.instagram.com/vanessaleejones81/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ultraviolet Art Talks Season 18 EP02 Stephen Taylor

On this episode, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Stephen Taylor on his studio in 2024. Always wanted to know what an artist studio looks like? Watch full Instagram interview here [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C66MjRWM4YO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==]. Stephen Taylor is an Irish artist based in Dublin. He studied visual arts practice at IADT, and combines his work as an artist with working as part of the team at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Stephen’s paintings and drawings explore the strangeness of our optical experience, with ideas drawn from popular culture, memory, observation and imagination, cast a meticulous and mischievous eye on urban, suburban and domestic scenes that might otherwise go unnoticed. His subjects are dogs and their walkers, urban foxes, horses, trees, buildings, plants – all given an equal non-hierarchical respect and attention. His work has been acquired by collectors including the Office of Public Works, the Beacon Hospital, the British Embassy in Dublin, and Nova UCD. Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks [https://www.instagram.com/_ultravioletarttalks_/] For more information, follow Stephen Taylor on Instagram @stephentails [https://www.instagram.com/stephentails/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Ultraviolet Art Talks Season 18 EP01 Van Tran

Opening Season 18, Caren Sullivan talks to artist Van Tran on his studio in 2024. Want to know what an artist studio is like? Watch full Instagram interview here [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5ipg6jM3to/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==]. Van Tran (b. 2000, Hanoi, Vietnam) is a visual artist working between Vietnam and Ireland. His practice centres on traditional Vietnamese lacquer, engaging themes of migration, ecological interdependence, and material memory. Through layered surfaces incorporating silver leaf, eggshell, and shell fragments, Tran constructs paintings that function as temporal archives. His work reflects lived experience across geographies, drawing parallels between avian migration and diasporic identity. He has exhibited in Ireland, Vietnam, China, and France, including exhibitions at the National Museum of Fine Art (Vietnam) and The Lab Gallery (Dublin). Artist statement Painting begins before its physical making. It exists first within memory, material, and inherited knowledge. My practice centers on Vietnamese lacquer, a medium shaped by generations of makers, including my parents, whose thirty-year engagement with lacquer forms the foundation of my relationship to it. Having grown up between Vietnam and Ireland, I experience identity as something continuously negotiated across distance. Places return altered; memories persist while landscapes shift. Lacquer mirrors this condition. Built through layering, sanding, concealment, and revelation, it records time through accumulation. Here, Where It Remains examines migration through the parallel movements of diasporic experience and bird migration. Birds appear not as symbols but as bodies guided by instinct, climate, and survival — navigating between departure and return. The works treat lacquer as a temporal surface where traces emerge and disappear. Silver leaf oxidizes, shells fracture, and pigments darken. These transformations echo how identity forms through erosion and persistence. Migration becomes neither loss nor arrival, but an ongoing state of becoming. Follow Ultraviolet Art Talks on Instagram @_ultravioletarttalks_ [https://www.instagram.com/_ultravioletarttalks_/] For more information, follow Van Tran on Instagram @van.trran [https://www.instagram.com/van.trran/] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.