Featured Artist| Claire O’ Sullivan

Claire O’ Sullivan is was brought up by the shores of Brittas Bay before moving to Wicklow Town. Living beside the sea has always been an important influence on her character and her work. Her style is heavily influenced by her love of nature and the unknown, as well as surrealist and Dada artists such as Magritte, Dali, and Hoch. Using oil and acrylic paints along collage materials, she creates vibrant surreal images. She received a BA from the National College of Art and Design, and is currently based in Dublin.

My ambition is to create work that questions what we see and what we take for granted.

The psychology of the social acceptance of the world and how it works may be just as interesting as the scientific questions about the universe. This brought me to consider humanities ability to see the world and wonder how stunted our senses really are.

My source material mainly comes from astronomical and telescopic photographs, nature books from the 1960s to present day and old cultural and religious magazines. By using this imagery together I try to achieve a contrast between the black and white and/or grainy or muted appearance of old photography, against the illuminous colours seen in modern telescopic images through the use of infrared and ultraviolet filters.

I hope to create a visual contrast through colour but also a contrast of eras of knowledge and acceptance that should question our comfort in our sense of reality.

 More of her work can be viewed on her website.

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