The Ballinglen Arts Foundation and Museum of Art Second Biennial Exhibition International Exhibition in the West of Ireland

Happy to have my work selected for the second Biennial Exhibition: an international group exhibition at The Ballinglen Museum of Art, Ballycastle, Co. Mayo, August 2025 - January 2026. `

Exhibition Open to Public: Sunday 31st August 2025 - Friday 9th January 2026

Work was selected by a panel of three well established artists: Mick O’Dea PPRHA, Artist and Ballinglen Arts Foundation Board Member, Artist Nona Hershey and Artist Erik Mattijssen. Full list of artists to be added to the website soon. 

This Biennial Exhibition marks a significant milestone in the foundations mission to foster creative exchange and artistic innovation. By bringing together a diverse range of artistic voices, Ballinglen aim to create a dynamic and thought-provoking exhibition that celebrates the richness and diversity of contemporary art. 

Exhibiting Artists: Mie Akatsu; Sinéad Aldridge; Alice Austin; Ailbhe Barrett; Frances Bermingham Berrow; Louise Blakeway; Noelle Brennan; Elizabeth Burkholder; George Burland; Angela Byrne; Comhghall Casey; Tamar Chatterjee; Nuala Clarke; Ana Colomer; Irene Costello Brandle; Aidan Crotty; Erin De Burca; Jacobien De Rooij; Diarmuid Delargy; Suzanne Dolan; Cathy Dorman; Grainne Dowling; Susan Dubsky; Mags Duffy; Gabhann Dunne; Susan Early; Ciara Fitzpatrick; Emma Fitzpatrick; John Fitzsimons; Norah Flatley Lovell; Taffina Flood; Ann Flynn; Rick Fox; Hugh Frazer; Bill Freeland; Brian Gallagher; Conor Gallagher; Julia Gallagher; Margot Galvin; Pauline Garavan; Michael Geddis; Maria Ginnity;  Darragh Granahan; Judi Green; Julie Ann Haines; Evangelia Hamilton; David Hedderman; Sam Herdman; Nona Hershey; Stephanie Hess; Jennifer Hickey; Sylvia Hill; Carol Hodder; Carol Holtz; Michelene Huggard; Margaret Irwin West; Olivia Jones; Andrea Kavanagh; Ann Kavanagh; Bonnie Kavanagh; Gary Kearney; Brian Kelly; Eddie Kennedy; Bernadette Kiely; Serena Kitt; Keith Larkin; Gavin Lavelle; Stephen Lawlor; Barbara Lee; Maria Levinge; Kaye Maahs; Kate MacDonagh; Jay MacDonnell; Christine Mackey; Susan Madert; Dave Madigan; Jenny Mahony; Selma Makela; Kelvin Mann; Bernie Masterson; Erik Mattijssen; Patricia McElroy; Deirdre McKenna; Elva Mulchrone; Janet Murran; Tony G. Murray; Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh; Bláthnaid Ní Mhurchú; Stephen Niles; Stephanie Noble; John Nolan; Emer Noone; Gerri O' Brien; Cora O'Brien; Siobhan O'Callaghan; Mary O'Connor; Mick O'Dea; Esther O'Kelly; Amy O'Riordan; Eileen O'Sullivan; Maire O'Sullivan; Reinder Ourensma; Catherine Patrickson; Cilla Patton; Louise Peat; Tina Poole; Liz Rackard; Claudia Rilling; Catherine Rock; Cara Rose; Marcus Rowlands; Krisztina Rozanich; Robert Russell; Robert Ryan; Kevin Sharkey; Anastasia Shik; Marie Smith; Amelia Stein; David Stephenson; Judith Sturm; Donald Teskey; Darryl Vance; Sinead Wall; Deirdre Walsh; Michael Wann; Lee Welch; Manon West; Keith Wilson; Amelia Wykes; Andrew Wykes; Emma Zukovic    

 

CCA x Jerwood Arts = Supports Mentors and Mentees 2024

Pleased to announce that I was selected and paired with Mentor & Artist Joy Gerrard by CCA Derry~Londonderry in the second cohort of the CCA x Jerwood = Supports Mentoring programme. The second cohort are:

Mentees:
Amira McDonagh, Clinton Kirkpatrick, Ellen Blair, Esther O’Kelly, Lucy Mulholland, Rachael Melvin, Rebecca Strain, Seanna O’Boyle-Irvine

Mentors:
Ellen Mara De Wachter, Edy Fung, Joy Gerrard, Alison Pascoe, Laura O’Connor, Sinéad O'Neill-Nicholl, Moran Been-noon

The Mentoring scheme offers support and assistance to emerging artists in our region who are navigating the challenges of a career in the arts. Mentees will benefit from insight and knowledge shared by their mentors, who will - through these supportive and constructive sessions - bring their experience, perspectives and prompts to mentees’ practices.

The CCA x Jerwood = Supports Short Mentoring Scheme is a paid programme for both Mentors and Mentees.

Joy Gerrard, Precarious Freedom: Crowds, Flags, Barriers © The Artist. Photography: Ros Kavanagh

'The Point of Perspective', Fort Dunree

126 Artist-run Gallery & Studios & Artlink hosts 'The Point of Perspective', curated by the 126 board of directors, which takes place from 30 July - 28th August 2022.

The artist is encouraged through the process of art making to reach the highest point of perspective, allowing the process to take them on a journey, carrying them to the the most prosperous point of realisation, a point of view reflecting a place of revelation.

Donegal is an emotional landscape of mountainous peaks, the highest trails, and Ireland's highest point of landscape perspective. An idyllic setting to reach the furthest point of perspective through the process of art.

Is the view from the final point as satisfying as it is telling? What can this teach us of the artistic point of perspective and of single and multiple points along the way? A metaphoric experiment of reason.

Through an open call, artists were invited to submit work in which they have achieved through the process of art making, a place of higher perspective. The exhibition is interested in the perspective of the other, allowing an attainment of points of view to culminate in the form of a group show.

126 Gallery Board are Meabh Noonan, Mary McGraw, Liz Curran, Lindsay Merlihan and Sona Smedkova

https://www.artlink.ie/portfolio/the_point_of_perspective/

‘Space For The Birds’ 40x40cm Original painting on Canvas by Esther O’Kelly

Slavka Sverakova Review 'Host'

Esther O'Kelly exhibits eight paintings, acrylic on canvas that share the same title Photosphene and a number 1-8. Four large ones share the diameter of 60 cm, one a little smaller of 50cm diameter, and three smaller ones, 30cm, 33cm and 36cm. A rondel has an interupted history, in rich appearances in Hellenistic art, Renaissance and 20th C, with large gaps where it is absent, and shifts to the privacy of small scale embroidery, tapestry. O'Kelly is thus reviving it for modern vitalism of wild colour contrasts and undescribed motives. According to the curator of HOST, Moran Been-noon, they are "expressions of a journey into childhood" via "memories, a version of reality that we harbour within, shards of light that pierce through otherwise a misty perception of why and how we understood the world around us and of our place within it now." I admit being overwhelmed by those words, applicable to so much, that escapes definition. My take is to answer a question concerning what is visible. The rondel itself has a history, as I mention above and in poetry and music(there it spells "rondo" and follows patterns of repetition). In these paintings the circular form has another meaning: that of repeat of similarity and difference of direction. Turning a rondel leads to another variant of the rhythm and space thus influencing the meaning. I sense every one of them houses a number of variants, like a musical equivalent of rondel referred to as rondo. O'Kelly offers multiples in one circular form based on her mastering untidy plurality of hues and tones to feed the viewer's imagination. They are like the universe, not fully understandable but powerfully present.

Image Credit: Tim Millen

Woods And Water

‘Woods And Water’ Triptych. 2100mm x 3600mm Acrylic On Canvas ©2021

This signature piece was commissioned by Haller Clarke on behalf of Bywater Properties. Installed at 35DP Belfast. Read the interview here.

A Belfast landscape inspired by the hidden history below our feet. The 3 rivers that still flow far below the city’s pavements, surrounded by high hills and ancient woods. Exploring emotion & intuitions, the painting is built with layers like stratified history, each stroke a different place discovered and uncovered. 

A sense of belonging and meaning are explored. Time collides in the past, present and future, all running alongside. I feel joy and wisdom in these stories.  The poetic presence of the literary and mythological. The ideas that take root and flourish in the imagination. By travelling within this inner space I return to the roots of this city, expressed without objects and clutter - just joy and the landscape. 

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At Home: The Artist Home

Today we visit Esther O'Kelly at home in Belfast. Originally from Wexford, Esther is a visual artist and a founding member of Vault Artist Studios, a community of over a hundred practitioners working across a range of disciplines. READ ARTICLE

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