Page 6 - COBH EDITION 5th APRIL DIGITAL VERSION

Maria O’ Sullivan Art Biography
www.mariaosullivanart.com

Born in Cobh in 1990, Maria graduated with an Honours
degree in Fine Art from Crawford College of Art and De-
sign in June 2014.
From the Degree Show she was selected to exhibit in
Joan Clancy Gallery where she received special mention
by Irish Times Art Critic Aidan Dunne, and Peter Murray
of the Irish Examiner.
She was also invited to participate in the Annual Fledg-
lings Exhibition in the Lavit Gallery Cork and in the
Emerging Artist Exhibition in St. Patrick’s Hospital Dub-
lin.

Shortly after graduating Maria was awarded a three-
month residency with Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in
Venice. During which time her “Urban Series” was exhibited at the Agora Gallery, in Chel-
sea, New York. Her work has since been collected both nationally and internationally. It
also forms part of the CIT Civic Collection.

From 2015 - 2017 Maria spent time working with Art Auctions at Sea before moving to
Bournemouth, UK. Soon after she became a part of “Atelier Studios” in Christchurch and
“The Factory Studios” Bournemouth.

During this time Maria also Collaborated with Arts2educate running workshops and creat-
ing live performance painting for ‘The Big Draw Festival’.
Since moving back to Ireland in April – her work has been exhibited in the Doorway Gal-
lery in Dublin, Cork Airport, and is now available in the Half Light Gallery in Middleton.
She has also worked with St. Als School in Cork creating artwork for the ‘Future Forms’
Exhibition in the Glucksman Gallery in UCC this March.

“Painting is a way in which I explore my own relationship to the world. It helps me un-
derstand my own thoughts and explore the possibilities of my mind. Allowing me to see
the unseeable.”

“My goal is not to imitate the world but to understand how it operates and to find clarity
somewhere between the representational and the abstract.”

Conceptually the work is part-social and part-climatic -exploring the complex interactions
between the structural and the social. Often using architecture as a departure point,
Maria uses structures to provide a certain social context which allows her to compress
time and place. She starts her process by making marks, and uses those marks to create
a space. Each composition - sometimes collage, acrylic paint, digital, charcoal and ink -
shows structures and scenes shifted into something new.

The work is contrived from a reservoir of accumulated experiences, it is a record of a
lapse in time and place, addressing the intersection of past and future existence. Maria
is continuously exploring the relationships between built environments and the people
and systems that inhabit them in her work, often dealing with the ambiguity of what has
been and what is to come.
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