The RDS Visual Art Awards is the most important platform for visual art graduates in Ireland. It has a very important social impact to artists and on the country’s cultural industry as it provides substantial funding to arts programming. The Awards also cre- ates a curated exhibition opportunity with a significant prize fund of over €35,000, as well as vital exposure for emerging visual artists as they move into early professional practice. In a brand new and historic partnership with IMMA, this year the Awards and exhibition will be held in IMMA’s West Wing of the Main Galleries, set in the beautiful Royal Hospital Kilmainham. The exhibition space will be designed by this year’s curator Elaine Hoey, once a recipient of an RDS Visual Art Awards in 2016 where she won the coveted RDS Taylor Art Award, an award for the most promising emerging visual artist in that year.
This year 15 exhibiting artists have been se- lected to exhibit from some of the best BA & MA visual art graduates from all over Ireland, having gone through a rigorous competitive two-stage process to get their work into this much sought show for emerging artists. The 2023 exhibition will be embedded into IMMA’s core programming as it runs funtil March 3rd – giving further opportunity to the artists’ work to be seen at an internationally renowned gallery space and for a proper period of time that gives impetus to spotlight their work holistically.
Unnatural Deselection
Winner of the R.C. Lewis-Crosby Award. Oisín graduated with a BA (Hons) Fine Art, from the Technological University Dublin, in 2023. He is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice draws upon materials, media and mechanisms to investigate our understanding of and relationship with ecology. Commenting on Oisín’s work, the 2023 RDS VAA judging panel said; “Oisin’s work has a formal elegance- extraordinary wall drawing. It is exploring complex ideas of nature, time and materiality.”
Nascent Network installation shot
Remaking Life
Bovinity Stilts
Molasses still
Transition To Transcendence
Subliminal Perceptions performance image
ASHA MURRAY – Winner of the RHA Graduate Student Award
CIAN HANDSCHUH – Winner of the RDS Members’ Art Fund Award
Cian graduated from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in 2023. He is a visual artist primarily working in sculpture and installation art. His current practice aims to examine links between body and land using the dwelling as a mutual space and as such an analysis point for their interaction.
Commenting on Cian’s work, the 2023 RDS VAA judging panel said; “Cian Hanschuh’s presentation is conceptually strong .The jury appreciated its formal sculptural qualities and the thoughtful processes involved in the realisation of the installation.”
Groundfast
Threshold
TAÏM HAIMET – Winner of the RDS Taylor Art Award.
Taïm graduated with a BA Honors Degree in Contemporary Art, from ATU Galway in 2023. Her work is about the migrants crossing of the sea to the shores of Europe. It is based on the haunting stories she heard as an Arabic interpreter for asylum seekers in Galway, as well as the conversations with her Syrian family members who have experienced this journey.
The 2023 RDS VAA judging panel commented on Taïm’s practice saying; “Her work is very conceptually complete, it is clear and resolved. Evokes strong emotional response. Addresses pertinent issues in a deeply pertinent and visceral way. We felt it was a very complete installation and deserving of RDS Taylor Art Award.”
Face inside oar sculpture
CHRISTOPHER McMULLAN – Winner of the RDS Mason Hayes & Curran LLP Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency Award
Christopher graduated from National College of Art and Design in 2023, with a BA Honours in Fine Art, specialising in sculpture. Christopher’s practice draws from his decade-long career in avant-garde kitchens, where he learned to extract perfumes for luxurious plates and sommelier training. He saw potential in the ‘de-luxification’ of aroma, recognising its capacity to incite articulation through uncodified, highly creative and, oftentimes, visually referential means.
Commenting on Christopher’s work, the 2023 RDS VAA judging panel said; “Mc Mullan’s work has a very mature aesthetic. Its addressing very interesting issues of market forces, commodification, nature, taste and bias.”
Self Portrait
Ambient Dissonance
The 2023 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition is on at IMMA’s West Wing of the Main Galleries from 10.00am-5.30pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays / 11.30am–5.30pm on Wednesdays / and 12noon–5.30pm on Sundays and Bank Holidays.
There will be exhibition tours and talks led by curator Elaine Hoey. Bookings for these will open from next week.
For further info check rds.ie/visualart
