Instagram Pick of the Week | Cará Donaghey
We love Instagram! Why? Because it gives you access to tonnes of visual art at your finger tips! Follow @thisheadstuff to stay up to date with our finds on our favourite app!
Every week HeadStuff’s Visual Arts Editor will feature posts from their favourite artists on Instagram. So add the hashtag #thisheadstuff to be featured!
Up this week is Cará Donaghey aka @caradonaghey, an artist and student from Buncrana, Co. Donegal. She lives in Dublin and is currently in her third year at NCAD, studying for her BA (Hons) in Fine Art Printmaking & Visual Culture. At the moment her work is dealing with the mythology of place, tackling the idea of nostalgia and the personal and communal histories of an area.
I primarily use Instagram as a platform to share snippets of all my work and not just finished pieces. I try to keep the personal posts to a minimum so that my page is kept fairly concise. Other than the self-promotion aspect, the app itself is just enjoyable as an insight into other creative’s working lives. I am really into the new “stories” feature as I can catch a glimpse into professional’s day to day routine in the studio. I learn a lot from seeing how other people work and not just studying the end product. I also appreciate how an Instagram profile can become a small-scale effort in curation.
I started using Instagram in December of 2012 and began to share my work pretty much straight away. I had just finished secondary school and had started taking my career as an artist seriously. At that time, most of my experiences with contemporary art and illustration had been online. In my teens I hadn’t ventured much further culturally than Donegal for a few years, other than a couple of school trips to the National Gallery in fourth year. I see sharing work on social media as one of the most important things that an emerging visual artist can do today.
My experience so far at NCAD has been extremely rewarding but not without its challenges. I found it difficult to settle in during my first year but I eventually found my niche and the college became like a second home to me. Having the option to major in both Fine Art and Visual Culture has given me really solid academic research skills as well as practical skills. Although NCAD as an institution has had its ups and downs over the past couple of years with the integration of the 3 year degree course, the lesson I’ve taken from this is that you have to work with what you have, and what you put into your education is generally what you will get out of it.
I use so many materials that I consider absolutely essential that it’s hard to list! As a printmaker, I focus on etching. My printmaking materials consist of copper, Charbonnel etching inks, and Somerset papers. But before I get into the workshop, I spend a lot of time drawing. My pencil case is stuffed full of different pens, markers and pencils. I use a Pilot Rexigrip 0.5mm mechanical pencil and ordinary Staedtler pencils. I use a lot of brush and ink, I prefer Daler-Rowney’s FW acrylic ink in Black, Payne’s Grey and Gold.
My current must-follow Instagram accounts are @artistsrepeal8, @tbgands, @tlp_says, @nadiatranquil, @hiluncheonette, @grimezsz, @taramcpherson and her boutique @thecottoncandymachine, @juxtapozmag and of course @ncadprint2017, our degree year’s Instagram.
