Deirdre O’Mahony

Deirdre O’Mahony is a visual artist whose practice is informed by a deep interest in rural sustainability, farming, food security and rural/urban relationships. For more than two decades she has investigated the political ecology of rural places through public engagement, archival and moving image installation, critical writing and cultural production.¹

Exhibitions and projects in 2021 include Little did they know, EVA Biennale Guest Programme curated by Merve Elvern, Cooking Channel: Critical Recipes for PhotoIreland 2021, Sustainment Experiments: The PLOT at VISUAL Carlow, and a publication, BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE, with ACA Public. Other projects include X-PO, a former rural post-office in the west of Ireland revived as a social space that has since been recognised as an exceptional socially engaged artwork and SPUD 2009 – 2019, developed through collaborative public events to facilitate discourse on agricultural issues and tacit knowledge. SPUD included The Persistent Return, a moving image installation at VISUAL Carlow that toured to the European Capital of Culture Leeuwarden (2018).

Recent awards include Visual Arts Bursary (2021) Arts Council of Ireland, Fire Station Artist Studios’ Sculpture Award (2021), the Kilkenny Arts Office Residency Award at Centre Culturel Irlandais (2020), the Irish American Cultural Institute O’Malley Award (2018), the Wellcome Trust Livestock residency at the Museum of English Rural Life (2017) and an international Pollock-Krasner Award (1995).  She has been selected for residencies at Centre Culturel Irlandais, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, Museum of English Rural Life, UK, and Askeaton Contemporary Arts.

Academic qualifications include a BA (Fine Art) St Martins School of Art, London (1979), MRes. Crawford College Cork, CIT, (2005) and PhD from  the University of Brighton (2012).²