Emma O’Brien

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Emma O’Brien is a graduate of The Griffith College BA in Photographic Media. Her photographic practice is concerned mainly with themes of family childhood and home. Documenting the personal and the private, domestic landscapes, rural life, small towns and neighbourhoods

Her recent work seeks to make sense of the challenges a working mother faces; While mothering a young child, balancing unpaid emotional and domestic labour with paid work, she abandoned her photographic practice. As her child grew she began to explore the role of mother as artist and redefined her practice.  Turning her camera on her child she documents their everyday life. Her work recognises and amplifies the notion that a mothers lived experience is a valid area of artistic inquiry. She aims to continue exploring the changing roles and cultural expectations placed on mothers through the 20th and 21st Century in future work. ¹

A career in Social and Community work informs her practice as she has a strong sense of ethics and works collaboratively with her subjects.
In 2023 Emma Published her first Photobook, The Holding Place.  Selected to represent Ireland in Europe on the  Futures Talent Platform by PhotoIeland in 2022, and she is a Recipient of the Irish Arts Council Bursary Award for Visual Arts in 2022. She Also Received the Agility Award by the Irish Arts Council in 2021 and was selected  As FreshEyes Talent by GUP magazine, 2021; Work published by PhotoIreland, 2021; She has work exhibited in Vienna, Rotterdam, Dublin, and the UK. Selected for PhotoIreland Open call 2010; Shortlisted for Smedia Awards in 2009.  ²