What's it all about?

I'm back in full art-making swing again after several years of studying and working with extraordinary wildlife. During these years, my creative tendencies still emerged in my every activity. Visual interpretation was key to identifying frogs and geckos. I taught my young Malagasy environmental education students how to draw their native birds and plants. I explored natural instincts through dance, built giant lobster and bird floats for parades, taught English through song and ecology through drama.

Now the urge to create my own work has returned, as a duty, a gift and a longing. Creative expression has the power to heal rifts between the parts of us that have fallen asunder - art and science, body and mind, bringing the outdoors indoors and vice versa. While in the past my work was personal, instinctive, introspective and surreal, my current plans have a more focused, outward aim: to return humankind to its natural ecosystem through colourful encounters with insects.

By gently sparking people's intrigue with stories or shocking them into adoration with a barrage of colour and beauty, I hope to draw people into a desire to understand more of the natural world. Tiny unknown creatures made famous and great in richly coloured splendour. A Christmas card with a nature lesson inside. A silent-disco ladybird sweep. The stories of beekeepers given new, animated life. The speciation of ideas is happening at a rapid rate!

The dream? Insects as celebrity pin-ups, the poster-bugs of a joyful, dynamic conservation movement. Biological recording as popular as Pokémon Go!

Highlights

• Bugonia, solo exhibition at Bí Urban, Stoneybatter, opening on 2nd November.
• Rove Beetle, a Dublin Canvas commission, September 2017.
• More Than Bees: Lesser known tips for pollinator conservation, a participatory video project, August 2017.
• Bee Time Artist Residency, UK, July 2017
• Past member and exhibitor at Ormond Studios (2016)
• Open Studio Crit at Mart Studios (25th July 2016)
• The Beauty of Bugs, a two page feature by Cónal Thomas in Dublin InQuirer (Issue 5: September 2016)
• Singer, Community Officer and promotional design work for Discovery Gospel Choir, Ireland's leading intercultural choir (February 2016 - present)
• UCD Innovation Academy mentorship (Endeavour award) with Eileen Diskin of Biodiversity Beermats and The Wild Postcard Project (2015)
• Children's art classes and promotion of local crafts in Madagascar (2014)
• Exhibitions in Ireland, Japan, Romania. Hover over the images below to see where they have been shown.
• Christmas Card designs (2010, 2016)
• Soft Blonde Moustache drawing, singing, playing collective with Mary-Jo Gilligan, Julia McConville and Aileen Murphy (2008 - present). Highlights include a solo exhibition and book launch at Monster Truck, a solo exhibition in Studio 8, Ljubljana, and 'Cyanotis binocularis', a Darwin-inspired installation at the Royal Irish Academy, as part of the Douglas Hyde Gallery's Preponderance of the Small.
• BA in Fine Art Print, National College of Art and Design.
• Member of the Defastenist Movement.

Scroll down further to see a selection of my work over the years...