Aisling Dunne is a multi-disciplinary artist from North County Dublin. She has taken part in numerous group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including The Piping of the Queen Bee, Ardgillan Castle (2023), Winter Group Exhibition, Hang Tough Contemporary (2022), SeeMe, Sasse Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2022), Point of Perspective, ArtLink (2022), Through the Looking Glass, Birr Arts Festival (2021), Artwaves, Skerries (2016). She had solo exhibitions in Skerries Mills (2019) and Haptik, Belfast (2014). She has a BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture from NCAD. She received the Agility Award from the Arts Council (2023 and 2021) and the Fingal County Council Artists Support Scheme (2023 and 2022). She has been shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize 2023 and the artwork will be on display in the National Gallery of Ireland from December 2023 to March 2024. Her paintings are in private collections in Ireland, the U.S. and Australia. Aisling also works as a Curator for Ardgillan Gallery in Ardgillan Castle.
Aisling Dunne works across multiple disciplines including painting, sculpture, photography and performative video, drawing upon the interdependent relationship of liminal states. She is interested in the interdependency of history, memory and dream and is driven by the symbolic nature of objects and animals. Her work interrogates the fluid dynamic between feeling and words, often focussing on the complex —and often impenetrable— linguistic challenges that Irish society experience in this regard. With direct experience of neurodiversity, acute illness and trauma, her work addresses the disparate experience of humans through the unreliable lens of memory and it is within this context that she navigates and explores the inconsistency between speech and intent. Recent work has increasingly invoked research on the symbolic nature of Irish folklore and the rich history of paganism and celtic mythology in Irish history. She is currently creating multi-media installations based on the worship of feminine goddesses and nature in Irish mythology. This work seeks to examine the incongruous and trilateral influence between this worship, the environment, and the patriarchy within Irish society.
Aisling Dunne