Ciara O’Kelly is an Irish visual artist currently living in Amsterdam. Her work takes the form of large scale video installations incorporating both digital and physical entities. Throughout her process, she meticulously examines the systematic generation of cyberspace whilst constructing each piece, aiming to critique our relationship to corporate bodies within a largely capitalist and digitised world. O’Kelly is particularly interested in the individual’s dual role as both a consumer and a product within the system of data capitalism and its free labour nature. She primarily uses 3D modelling programs to create virtual environments to stage videos within, whilst using these grounds to challenge the capabilities of digital forms through carefully curated physical encounters.
O’Kelly graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 2017 with a Joint BA in Fine Art Sculpture and Visual Culture. Following this, she was the recipient of the Digital Media Graduate Award at Fire Station Artists’ Studios and later received the Young Artists’ Development Award from South Dublin County Council in 2018 & 2019. O’Kelly was awarded a residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Colorado in Spring 2019.
CURRICULUM VITAE / CIARA O'KELLY
Dublin, Ireland
EDUCATION
(Present) MA Dirty Art Department, Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam (NL).
2017 BA Joint First Class Honours in Fine Art Sculpture & Visual Culture. National College of Art and
Design, Dublin (IRE).
2016 Erasmus semester, Fine Art. HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (NL).
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2019 (Solo) Systematics of the Staged at The Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX (USA).
2019 Twist and Twine, Paradice Palase in partnership with ChaShaMa, Queens, New York (USA).
Curated by Tiffany Smith.
2019 Cork Sound Fair, Cork (IRE) in collaboration with Repeater.
2018 TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway Arts Centre, Galway (IRE). Curated by Linda Shevlin.
2018 Work selected by Sarah Browne to show within group exhibition, Strange Foreign Bodies at Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow (UK).
2017 NCAD Graduate Show, National College of Art & Design, Dublin (IRE). Curated by Emma Mahony.
2017 Me and Daddy, Benson Hall, Rhode Island (USA). Curated by Noah Pica & Ingrid Zippe.
2017 Work selected by Sarah Browne to show within her solo exhibition, Report to an Academy at Marabouparken Konsthall, Stockholm (SWE).
2016 Alsjeblieft, KUUB, Utrecht (NL). Curated by Anno Dijkstra.
AWARDS/RESIDENCIES
2019 Welcome to my Homepage, MoHA digital residency, Austin, TX.
2019 Young Artist Development Bursary Award, South Dublin County Council.
2019 Spring Artist-in-Residence Award, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Colorado.
2018 Young Artist Development Bursary Award, South Dublin County Council.
2017 Digital Media Graduate Award Residency, Fire Station Artists’ Studios Dublin.
2017 Longlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2019 Screening of Procedures for a Prosperous Ecology, OStudio, Brooklyn, NY.
2019 Studio Assistant, Nancy Lorenz Studio, NY.
2019 Artist Talk, The Art Base, Basalt, CO.
2019 Artist Talk, Launchpad, Carbondale, CO.
2018 Studio Assistant, Shahzia Sikander Studio, NY.
2018 Gallery Assistant, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.
2018 Gallery Internship, Petzel Gallery, NY.
2018 Artist Talk, Fire Station Artists’ Studio.
2018 Digital media/3D modelling teaching assistant at Fire Station Artists’ Studios.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2019 Phillips, Áine, “Syntonic State”. Visual Artist Ireland, Wednesday 9th January.
2018 Harty, Catherine, “TULCA, Syntonic State”.Circa Art Magazine, Thursday 13th
December.
2017 Dunne, Aidan, “The Next Generation of Artists”. The Irish Times, Tuesday 13th
June.
COLLECTIONS
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow