Dr Susan Connolly
Ph.D., MA, MFA, BA
Lecturer Fine Art
Biography
Dr. Susan Connolly is a graduate of Limerick School of Art and Design, Degree in Fine Art-Painting. She holds an MFA from the University of Ulster and a first class honours MA, from NCAD, Dublin. She recently completed her Ph.D. at Ulster University having been awarded the VC Scholarship in 2014.
Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Platform Arts, Belfast (2018), Ashford Gallery, RHA, Dublin (2017), dlrLexicon, DunLaoghaire, Dublin (2015), The Lab, Dublin (2015) and The Sunken Gallery, The MAC, Belfast (2014).
Group exhibitions include After an Act, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2018); Fully Awake, Glasgow, UK (2017); Veins, The Molesworth Gallery, Dublin (2016); What Is, and What Might be, Highlanes Gallery, Drogehda (2015); The Trouble with Painting, The Pumphouse Gallery, London (2014); Persona, ArtBox, Dublin (2014), Essays for the House of Memory, Ormston House (2013), Limerick; Three Degrees of Painting, Solstice Arts Centre, Navan; Detonate, Limerick Arts, Limerick (2013).
Recent awards include; The Golden Foundation, New York (2017). Arts Funding, Kildare County Council; WARP artist residency, Belgium (2010); Travel and Training Award (2009); DCR Guesthouse Residency, Den Haag, Holland (2009)
Since 2006 Connolly has lectured in the Fine Art Department at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), she formerly lectured in the Painting Department at Ulster University (UU), 2017-2018, Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), 2002-2003, and on the access programme in iadt, Dun Laoghaire 2006-2009. Visiting Artist/Lecturer University of Ulster, 2014/2015.
Connolly is an Assistant Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK.
The area of investigation within my practice explores a method of hybrid contemporary painting. The work is concerned with an expanded sense of paints materiality and meaning but investigated with full acceptance and knowledge of the tradition of painting practices which have existed in a landscape of infinitely elastic production for quite some time.
By asking questions of painting the concern lies in creating a space for conversation within the possibilities of the medium, rather than a model or originality for producing painted objects anew. Absent-ness and object-ness become reoccurring themes within the visual outcomes, with paintings seemingly now more concerned with their presentation than their imaging.
Most of the recent work has looked at theories associated with slippage in intention, meaning and materials and how this causes surface tension and doubt with the resulting artworks, not quite paintings but also not identifiable as something else either.
2018
Invited speaker, Riverbank Arts Centre, Kildare
2017
Shortlisted Art Panel- Stage 3, Infrastructure, Fingal County Council Public Art Programme 2017-2021
Invited Speaker, Painting/Materiality, RHA School, Dublin
Invited artist response, IMMA Freud Project, Dublin
Invited Chair, Painting Now, VAI event, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast
Art Grant Award, Kildare County Council
Short-listed artist, Suki Tea Prize, NI
Artist Residency, The Golden Foundation, New York
2016
VAI Get Together, Invited Speaker, IMMA, Dublin
Invited Speaker, Slow Motion: A Painting Symposium, UU, Belfast
PhD conference 2016, awarded presentation of excellence award
Invited participant in a documentary about Contemporary Irish Painting, curated by James Merrigan and filmed/produced by Saskia Vermeulen
2015
Artist Talk, LSAD
2015
in-conversation with Dougal McKenzie, dlrLexicon
What is and What might be, artist talk and workshop
Invited Speaker, Artists present, University of Ulster, Belfast
2014
Invited Speaker, The Place of Painting, Symposium, The Mac, Belfast
Artist Bursary Award, Kildare County Council
2013
Conference paper, Doubt and Visual Representation, UCC, Cork
Kildare County Councils, Arts Bursary
2012
Invited Speaker, PAINTTUBE, Symposium, NCAD, Dublin
2011
Habitation, curator of exhibtions/project, Kildare County Council
Commission, St Mary’s Secondary School, Naas, Co. Kildare
Commission, St Franan’s Secondary School, Prosperous, Co.Kildare
2010
WARP, Artist Residency, Belgium
2009
Travel and Training Award, Arts Council of Ireland
DCR, Artist Residency, The Hague, Holland. June-July
2008
New York Research Trip, May-Aug
2007
Artist Panel, 2007-2008, IMMA
Percent for Art Commission, Scoil an Linbh Iosa, Prosperous, Co. Kildare
2006
Artist in Residency, Driaocht, Dublin, June-Dec’06
Artist Bursary, Kildare County Council
2005
Tyrone Guthrie residency, awarded from Kildare County Council
2004
Awarded General Art Award, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
2003
Irish Art Review, Most Promising Young Artist
2000
Cill Rialaig Artist Residency, Kerry
1997
Taylor Student Art Prize, RDS, Dublin
After an Act, Slavka Sverakova, June’18 https://slavkasverakova.wordpress.com/2018/06/14/after-an-act-golden-thread-gallery-belfast-26th-may-14th-july-2018/
Artist response, Freud Project, IMMA
VAI- Painting edition, Sept’17
RHA Annual Exhibition 2017: A big, noisy, good natured show, The Irish Times, May’17
Others, Other-d and Otherness, Response to a Request, online journal
Visual Arts Round up, The Irish Times, Aidan Dunne, July’16
VAN, curated by James Merrigan, Spring 2016
BAM, Berlinartmagazine
What is and What might be, http://showerofkunst.com/sok/2015/11/04/what-is-and-what-might-be/
Visual Arts Round up, Painters who break the rules, Aidan Dunne, The Irish Times, 05/05/15
When the Ceiling Meets the Floor, Eoin Dara, http://www.susanconnolly.com/#!/text ,April 2015
Short texts…, Declan Long, June’15 https://declanlongtexts.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/short-texts-on-some-recent-shows-in-ireland/
The Dance, James Merrigan, Billion,, May’15 http://www.billionjournal.com/time/S.Connolly__G._Dunne_The_Lab.html
Susan Connolly at the Mac, by Declan Long, http://declanlongtexts.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/susan-connolly-at-the-mac-belfast/ , June 2014
Something about Some Thing to do with Paint, by Slavka Serakova, http://slavkasverakova.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/susan-connolly-something-about-some-things-to-do-with-paint/ , May 2014
The Irish Art Review, ‘Three Degrees of Painting’, by Carissa Farrell, Winter 2013
Subjects on a painter, Online Journal, http://www.subjectsofthepainter.blogspot.ie/
Studentszine.com, Issue 3, Open Submission Award, 2011
Connections, Sunday Irish Times, Culture Section, Cristin Leach, 1 May 2011
Expo 2010, China, feature artist
AIR- Artist in Residence, Someone’s Garden, Japan, Nov’09
Circa, http://www.recirca.com/articles/2008/texts/sc.shtml Slavka SverakovaFeb’08
VAN, http://www.visualartists.ie/susanconnolly.pdf May’07
Irish Times, ‘Crossing spaces and structures’, by Aidan Dunne, Feb’07
Irish Times, ‘Dreamers in difficult spaces’, by Aidan Dunne, Jan’06
EV+A 2003, catalogue for exhibition selected by Virginia Perez-Ratton
The Sunday Business Post, ‘Gambling on art’s young talent’, Mar’03
2018
Invited speaker, Riverbank Arts Centre, Kildare
2017
Shortlisted Art Panel- Stage 3, Infrastructure, Fingal County Council Public Art Programme 2017-2021
Invited Speaker, Painting/Materiality, RHA School, Dublin
Invited artist response, IMMA Freud Project, Dublin
Invited Chair, Painting Now, VAI event, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast
Art Grant Award, Kildare County Council
Short-listed artist, Suki Tea Prize, NI
Artist Residency, The Golden Foundation, New York
2016
VAI Get Together, Invited Speaker, IMMA, Dublin
Invited Speaker, Slow Motion: A Painting Symposium, UU, Belfast
PhD conference 2016, awarded presentation of excellence award
Invited participant in a documentary about Contemporary Irish Painting, curated by James Merrigan and filmed/produced by Saskia Vermeulen
2015
Artist Talk, LSAD
2015
in-conversation with Dougal McKenzie, dlrLexicon
What is and What might be, artist talk and workshop
Invited Speaker, Artists present, University of Ulster, Belfast
2014
Invited Speaker, The Place of Painting, Symposium, The Mac, Belfast
Artist Bursary Award, Kildare County Council
2013
Conference paper, Doubt and Visual Representation, UCC, Cork
Kildare County Councils, Arts Bursary
2012
Invited Speaker, PAINTTUBE, Symposium, NCAD, Dublin
2011
Habitation, curator of exhibtions/project, Kildare County Council
Commission, St Mary’s Secondary School, Naas, Co. Kildare
Commission, St Franan’s Secondary School, Prosperous, Co.Kildare
2010
WARP, Artist Residency, Belgium
2009
Travel and Training Award, Arts Council of Ireland
DCR, Artist Residency, The Hague, Holland. June-July
2008
New York Research Trip, May-Aug
2007
Artist Panel, 2007-2008, IMMA
Percent for Art Commission, Scoil an Linbh Iosa, Prosperous, Co. Kildare
2006
Artist in Residency, Driaocht, Dublin, June-Dec’06
Artist Bursary, Kildare County Council
2005
Tyrone Guthrie residency, awarded from Kildare County Council
2004
Awarded General Art Award, Arts Council of Northern Ireland
2003
Irish Art Review, Most Promising Young Artist
2000
Cill Rialaig Artist Residency, Kerry
1997
Taylor Student Art Prize, RDS, Dublin