PEOPLE
how it’s made
:meitheal
CURATOR & COORDINATOR
Valeria Ceregini is an Italian Irish-based art historian and visual arts curator with an international practice working across disciplines with artists from various media. She has over 10 years of curatorial experience and has collaborated with numerous international institutions and organisations working together with artists through exhibitions, festivals and public events.
ARTISTS
Maya Brezing an emerging Irish artist working and living in Dublin. She graduated NCAD in 2022 with a BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art specialising in printmaking. She was awarded the Black Church Print Studio Graduate Award 2022 for her exhibition ‘Traces of Tomorrow’.
Thomas Brezing is a multi-disciplinary artist. He was born in Germany, moved to Ireland in the early 1990’s and is based in Co. Dublin. Brezing has also been writing poetry for a number of years and his first collection Anvil Dust was published by Scotus Press in 2022.
Murielle Celis is a visual artist born in Belgium. She has worked with various mediums, including sculpture, painting, and photography. She extensively exhibited in Belgium, The Netherlands, England, Ireland, Russia and Canada.
Elizabeth Comeford lives in Balbriggan for over 30 years. She is a pastellist and printmaker. She is very interested in exploring new materials and techniques. Printmaking has encouraged her to expand her work practice to bookmaking, paper making and print techniques.
Judy Carroll Deeley’s art practice encompasses painting, drawing, collage, mixed media, installation and collaborative projects. She is the main project artist on the international study ‘Post-extractivist Legacies and Landscapes: Humanities, Artistic and Activist Responses’ in collaboration with UCD Humanities Institute.
Antonio D’Souza is a visual artist and designer / maker living in Skerries, North Co Dublin. He comes from a mixed cultural heritage of Goan, Kenyan, and British. He is recognised as a Professional Artist with Visual Arts Ireland.
Gordon Farrell graduated from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dublin in 1998. Since then, he has exhibited frequently in group & solo exhibitions in Ireland & abroad. Gordon works between Longford & Balbriggan Ireland.
Shane Finan is a visual artist and project manager working with interactive digital media and community-based projects. His work is about place, environment and technology, influenced by contemporary research from science, art, philosophy and sociology.
Noelle Gallagher is a visual artist based in Galway. A graduate of painting, she has since expanded her practice to include moving image, photography and printmaking techniques. Her artworks have been selected for numerous juried shows both nationally and internationally.
Bernadette Hopkins was born in Belfast, N.Ireland leading to her interest in human rights and feminism. She is a visual/performance and social practice artist. Her work explores human connections with the natural world and the creation of radical imaginary places based on lived landscapes.
Ida Mitrani is a Turkish-born French visual artist living in Ireland since 1997. Her work explores concepts of social ecology and critical plant studies such as plant blindness, post-naturalism, hybridity and the notion of human and plant displacement.
Leia Mocan, originally from Romania, is a Dublin based multimedia artist and activist working in the mediums of Photography, Ceramics, Sculpture, Art Installation, Art Performance, and Painting, focusing on themes related to the environment.
Darren Rogers is a professional multidisciplinary artist born in Ireland. Focusing mainly on music and visual art. Much of his work over the last number of years has been experimental, including anamorphic cube sculpture, kinetic sculpture and tea leaf animation.
Shaneski was born north of Balbriggan. He was given this name by his friends when he lived in Germany and it stuck. When he moved back to Ireland 10 years ago, he really started to do abstract visual pieces (acrylic, graphite, multimedia). Recently began performance pieces.
GUESTS
John Gallagher is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Systems Modelling, School of Engineering, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin. His experience is in design and assessment of passive air pollution control systems using life cycle assessment to generate low-carbon and resource efficient conclusions without negative consequences
Sarah Zimmerman is an environmental researcher with a particular interest in biodiversity policy, conservation and community-led projects. She completed a PhD and Diploma in Statistics in Trinity College Dublin and worked for five years as a researcher on an inter-disciplinary project on groundwater-dependent wetlands.
John O’Rourke is a documentary filmmaker with creative confidence and clarity of vision. John joined the television industry in 2011 and the majority of his work continues to be for broadcasters like the BBC, but recently he has also completed projects working directly for the studios of world-leading artists and major national museums.
HOW IT’S REMADE ARTISTS
CURATOR: HOW IT’S REMADE
Martin Hughes has curated several large-scale Exhibitions and Open Submission Competitions and in 2016 I was awarded the Stephen Scarff Award for contribution to the Community. He is currently curating a touring exhibition in 2024 titled the Ballerina Project in addition to How It’s Remade .
Martin Hughes studied painting and drawing in Germany and Ireland, primarily working with oil and pastel, and also creates from recycled wood and metal. He often works with mental health projects and built his own workshop and studio solely from recycled materials and work under the philosophy that we are limited only by our imagination. .
Akvile Simanskiene is a self-taught visual Artist, born and raised in Lithuania. Based in Balbriggan, Ireland. She is a member of MAAI (Mosaic Artist association of Ireland) and VAI (Visual Arts Ireland). She is currently working with Grasshoppers and also has many public works displayed in Balbriggan.
Rony Sidon was born in Guadeloupe in 1974, in Ireland since 1998. He studied Fine Art for 3 years in Martinique in the French Caribbean, then in Toulouse in France obtaining his Masters in Visual Art. He was the assistant of Ben Vautier, Galleries Jacques Girard, Toulouse.
Violeta Savickiene is an inspirational teacher of the arts with a wildly successful practice of teaching adults and youth for over 13 years in Balbriggan, Offering art classes for children and adults in person and online along with art camps.
Cormac Dennis began exhibiting professionally at the age of twenty and is completely self-taught with pastel and oil as mediums of choice. With multiple solo exhibitions, and many group shows, Cormac has also participated in fundraisers, including recently donating art to support victims of the Ukraine War.
Aisling Dunne is a multi-disciplinary artist from North County Dublin with a BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture from NCAD. She has taken part in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally, with works in private collections in the USA, Ireland and Australia. She is also the curator for Ardgillan Castle Gallery.
David Newton graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and then moved to NYC where he held art exhibitions, taught art and edited books. In his art studio, he creates many artworks and objects originating in collage materials and often featuring everyday life themes.
Tina Poole graduated from N.C.A.D with an Hons Degree in Fine Art Painting and followed by an Hons Post Grad H.DIP in Art & Design Education. With roots in abstraction, she recently has been observing domestic objects, with the ordinary revealing the magic and banality of everyday life.
Nicola McKenna is from Lusk, a mammy, a neurodiverse ADHD lass, an empath, and recovering people-pleaser. In 2017, she followed The Artist‘s Way book with a local group. As a result, she wrote fiction and made art, and now leads The Artist’s Way to show others how small easy creative methods can bring people contentment, peace, and completeness.
Fingal Lighthouse Art Group is a group of artists that have come together in the town of Balbriggan to help all artists to have a platform. The group organises art exhibitions, shows, markets, public art installation, community and school projects to foster the creative vibe and culture in the town. Tommy Gallagher, Bernie Davis and Eileen McGovern will be participating in the show.
MUSICIANS & PERFORMERS
Pat Coldrick has a reputation of being one of the finest and most versatile guitarists in Ireland. As well as his touring performances, he has appeared on National Radio and T.V. and studied with world renowned guitarists David Russell and Gabriel Esterellas. His music defies genre and appeals to a wide cross section of music lovers.
Sheila Ryder has written, performed and produced live short form theatre in Dublin, London and Edinburgh over the past 15 years including comedy sketches shows, street theatre and community theatre. She currently is the host of the SCÉAL sessions open mic events for spoken word, poetry and music in Balbriggan.
Kevin Curran is an author and secondary-school teacher from Balbriggan. His fiction largely concentrates on working class life in the Dublin suburbs. His latest book “Youth” is based in Balbriggan, following on the heels of “Beatsploitation” and “Citizens”, which have brought him National acclaim.
Poetry Kiln Collective is a creative collective that focuses on the immediacy of the spoken word including Annie Peter, Dave Hynes, and Caoimhe Weakliam.