Artists Speak | Get Together 2024
Artists Speak presentations allow us to share insights and to gain inspiration from one another. Get Together 2024 attendees will hear from VAI artist members, working across a range of disciplines, who will discuss their materials, processes, experiences, and their perspectives on the world.
~~~
10:45am | The Chapel
Nina McGowan is a Dublin-born visual artist and professional freediver. Her work explores transcendence, and the primacy of the experiencing body. In 2022, shortly after she turned 50, McGowan set a new world freediving record at the Outdoor Freediving World Championships at Kas, Turkey, for a dive of 43 metres in the No Fins category, which involved holding her breath for two minutes and ten seconds. Current art projects reflect her experiences underwater, activating and engaging audiences in the liminal space of the beach.
@marinina_freediver
Ralf Sander studied fine art and the history of art at HDK at the University of Gothenburg from 1986 to 1988 and completed a postgraduate course in sculpture at Berlin University of the Arts in 1994. From 1988 to 90, he circumnavigated the world on a small sailing boat with his partner Halina Sander. Sander then travelled to China and Japan to study Asian art and philosophy. Almost all his early works took the human body as its subject and base for human-scale wooden sculptures and carvings made from a single log of wood. He has realised 42 public art projects internationally in South Korea, Germany, UK, Ireland, Poland and the United States. Since 2005, Ralf has been a Reader in Fine Art at Ulster University where he lectures in a broad range of fine art disciplines including sculpture, installation, video, collaborative and site-specific projects.
ralfsander.info
Mags Geaney is an artist based in Cork. She previously studied Fine Art painting at LSAD, and was awarded an MA by Research in Fine Art by the Crawford College of Art and Design in 2010. Primarily a painter, Geaney also works in performance, video, and installation. Thematically, she explores grief, loss, identity, adoption and otherness through portraiture. Geaney has exhibited widely throughout Ireland, most recently in ‘Making Faces’ – a two-person exhibition with artist Katherine Boucher Beug at the Lavit Gallery in Cork.
magsgeaney.com
Venus Patel is a transfemme artist of colour who works primarily with performance and film. Her work deals with hate crimes, religious guilt, and Queer/POC suppression, and she utilises a unique mix of humour and absurdity to create multi-faceted performances and experiences. Her solo exhibitions include ‘Monsters of the Apocalypse’ with Pallas Projects, and ‘Daisy: Prophet of the Apocalypse’ with Sirius Arts Centre. Her work has been exhibited at Crawford Art Gallery, Butler Gallery, and the Complex.
venuspatel.com
~~~
4pm | The Chapel
Peter Crann, born in Dublin and based in Sligo, is a multidisciplinary artist known for his work as a painter, musician, and illustrator. He studied Fine Art and Graphic Design in Sligo, where his artistic journey began. Initially, Crann’s work focused on themes rooted in his challenging experiences growing up in a deeply religious Ireland during the 1980s. This influence extended into his creation of over 100 oil paintings and murals for churches in southern Spain. After returning to Ireland, he immersed himself in performing and making music, before eventually blending it with his visual art.
Orla O’Byrne is a Cork-based artist who works across a variety of media and techniques, such as drawing, photography and sculpture. In 2020 Orla was granted a studio license at Backwater Artists Group and in 2022 she became a member of the Board of Directors there. Recent funded projects include a research trip to the marble-quarrying region in Northern Italy and a residency at Crawford Art Gallery. She is currently artist-in-residence at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork. O’Byrne teaches life-drawing at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design and is a PhD candidate, writing her dissertation on artists working with archival materials.
orlaobyrne.com
Tom Climent is a painter based in Cork City. He is a graduate of the Crawford College of Art and Design, where he recieved a BA in 1995 and a Masters by Research in 2011. His work over the last 30 years or so has varied from paintings of figurative, urban and landscape subjects. Climent’s work has been presented internationally in group exhibitions at galleries such as the Herrick Gallery in London and The Painting Center in New York, as well as in the touring exhibition, ‘Irish Wave’, in Shanghai and Beijing. Climent exhibits with Solomon Fine Art in Dublin and has an upcoming exhibition in 2025 at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.tomcliment.com
Barialai Khoshhal is a photojournalist, photographer, and videographer based in Dublin, who has nearly ten years’ experience. He has previously worked in Afghanistan with the BBC, and for Aljazeera English, and The Diplomat Magazine. His photographs have been exhibited in cities around the world, including Dublin, Belfast, Kabul, New York, Berlin, Paris, Tehran, Jakarta, and Stockholm. Khoshhal is currently self-employed and is available for international commissions.
barialaikhoshhal.com
~~~
Get Together 2024
Tuesday 19th November
The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin 8.
Admission Tickets for Get Together are now SOLD OUT. Attendees who have already booked an admission ticket for Get Together do not need to book further tickets to attend Artists Speak.