Niamh O’Malley ARHA is interested in the exhibition as an architecture for scrutiny and attention. She is drawn to materials that display traces of their own making, labouring the surfaces of polished wood and graphite. There is a haptic, agitated quality to the edges and surfaces of her sculpture and drawings. When glass, a favoured material is seen it is sometimes tinted, and encountered as slivers of edged, translucent, solidness, potentially directing us to observe, re-observe and filter. O’Malley also uses video for its role as an animator; capturing and arresting attention and reminding us of our compulsion to gather and to make still. Her moving image works deliberately mark the observational tone or document of the film as subjective and delimited. The partial or the glimpse can be enough.
Biog
Born Co. Mayo, Niamh O’Malley studied at University of Ulster, Belfast and lives and works in Dublin.She has made numerous solo exhibitions including mother’s tankstation (2020); Royal Hibernian Academy (2019); Lismore Castle Arts (2019); Grazer Kunstverein (2018); Bluecoat Liverpool (2015); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2017) & (2015); a five venue solo show called ‘The Mayo Collaborative’ Ireland (2013); ‘Garden’, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2013); Ha Gamle Prestegard, Norway (2012); ‘Model’, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2011); ‘Island’, Centre Culturel Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (2010); ‘Frame, Glass, Black’ Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, France (2010); ‘Echo’, Gaain Gallery, Seoul, Korea (2010); ‘No Distance’, Void, Derry, Northern Ireland (2009).
Niamh represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale with her exhibition Gather in 2022.
Learn more about Niamh’s practice on her website here.
Image: Niamh O’Malley ARHA, Shelf, 2022, Beech, glass, steel 1555 x 2245 x 102 mm
