Now is the time to get Too Close. My fellow artists and I dug deeply into our research, our practices, and our lives to bring what matters most to us to life. The seven of us have wildly different goals and aesthetics – charcoal, glitter, and all – but Too Close is about proximity. We have lived together for two years, developing our work in tandem. Ecology, memory, queerness, and (dis)comfort come in and out of focus throughout the exhibition.

Get too close. Our work may stay with you for life.

I am a queer, transgender artist born and raised in the desert. Everytime I say where I’m from, I know what comes next: “Oh! Why would you move to Ireland then?” Graduate school, politics, or safety, depending on who’s asking. I left because, when weighing my options between comfort at home and safety abroad, I chose safety. That is the basis for my current work.

 My practice explores (dis)comfort, the queer, memory, and home through sculpture and installation. My work considers the intimate connection between people, their well-worn clothing/bedding, and household objects/spaces, as they are representative of the body, gender, and memory.

At the root are the contradictory experiences of LGBTQ people: queer and trans people are simultaneously comfortable in their bodies, relationships, and lifestyles and uncomfortable with societal standards. This concept is firmly embedded in my practice by combining incongruent spaces, materials, and phenomena to subvert expectations and twist the work into something outside accepted notions of reality. This can include clothing appearing perpetually wet as it is drying on a clothesline, making soft sheets hard or hard floors soft. To foster a positive relationship between the trans/queer communities and others in the current political moment, I strive to speak to universal realities about struggling to fit in, a strong desire for home, and a life full of (dis)comfort.

Aaron Asher (b. 2000) grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. After graduating from Las Vegas Academy of the Arts with an emphasis in ceramics, he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture with a minor in Art History from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2023. He immigrated to Ireland to pursue his MFA in Studio Art. He has exhibited work in Manchester, Limerick, Newtown Castle in County Clare, and Las Vegas City Hall Grand Gallery.

My work delves into the narratives that emerge from the convergence of place, memory, and cultural history. By engaging with archival structures and using everyday objects, footage, and photographs, I build narratives that  show the connections between seemingly disparate lines of enquiry like the living archive, fluvial systems, cultural practice and contemporary living.

Materials and abundance are central to my practice and I allow these variations and restrictions to shape my work. Whether through found objects or alternative processes, each piece I create is derivative of the resources at hand and the cultural contexts they embody. This approach fosters an intimate connection to place, as the materials I use are intrinsically tied to the specific environments I inhabit. The term abundance, while often referencing location, can mean personal abundance. While I outsource to nearby areas to see what materials are available to me (often organic matter or plastic), abundance can also be introspective. Often I will go through my boxes of hoarded objects to reflect on where I got them and why I kept them. These precious ticket stamps, plastic statues, photographs, rosary beads, prescriptions, chocolate wrappers and lighters compare quite similarly to objects that are carelessly discarded as waste.

By organising and transforming local materials and objects I can combine my own built narratives with factual reality. This subversion of the traditional archive references the carefully curated narratives built into conventional museums and galleries, which can be used as a tool to overpower factual representation. Within this realm of thought, it is important to consider the effect of removing an object from its relevant location for the sake of documentation. I demonstrate this in my work by removing organic matter from its homeplace to determine its accuracy as a reference to the area it developed in. The organic material adapts, fades or is preserved in a gallery space as the original location adjusts to the removal of material and to the ever changing seasonal challenges. The gap between place and object becomes larger as they adjust and change, bringing to question the accuracy of the object as a factual reference to its now estranged place of origin.

Róisín is a visual artist originally from Westmeath, now based in Clare. They hold a BA in Fine Art from LSAD and are completing their MFA in Art and Ecology at BCA. Róisín’s work centres on documenting and responding to cultural landscapes and has exhibited in Limerick, Askeaton, and Clare.

Beyond their artistic practice, Róisín is also an active curator, having co-curated Notions: Home, Place and Speculations at the People’s Museum in Limerick. They also run workshops on repurposing materials.

The unsustainability of Western society, supermodernity, and its subsequent inflicted traumas on the neurodiverse mind are the main focuses of my multimedia installation practice. My research centers on building visual narratives that harken to my lived experiences as an Autistic and ADHD individual and the relationships people have with the industrialized, and Westernized world. A background in fibers has led me to becoming a spinner and weaver of stories by creating immersive spaces that act as transportations to share perspectives. This practice is meant to highlight comforts used as flimsy bandages against the struggles of daily living as a Neurodiverse person.

I am here to play.

And to call into question environmental stimuli. Through my use of colour, fantasy, low lighting, low-pressure audience participation, and things typically thought of as childish, I aim to provoke internal dialogue that challenges the normalized societal pressures placed on people in the Western industrial world. I believe people deserve to live, work, and exist in environments crafted with comfort, joy, and accessibility rather than brutalist pushes for maximum capitalistic productivity, profit, and greed. My work asks: how can I bring Wonderland to life?

“The color of Texas in my memory is immediately that of hay. As a child, there was a field with a donkey, a mule, and a longhorn, all of whom I fed carrots often and loved dearly. I lived many places, in a chaotic hop of houses. But driving by the field one day on I-35, I saw the slick, reflective pitch of pavement that hurts the eyes, steams, and makes everything hotter before the relief of superstore coolness. My friend’s home had been destroyed, and the tears I shed that day are ones I’ll always feel on my face.”

I cannot have an accurate bio without acknowledging this pivotal story. I grew up in Texas as a queer undiagnosed AuDHD individual. At 27, I completed a BFA focused on sustainable fiber practices from the University of Oregon (2023). My time at UO coincided with receiving my diagnosis of Autism and ADHD and experiencing accommodations in an academic setting for the first time. It was at this point that I began thinking about what motivated me. Everything I created called into question the human connection to the state of the environment and presented stories of desperately looking for a metaphorical weighted blanket. I remembered my friends in the field and I remembered my grief over a loss I was truly too small to fully comprehend.

Now receiving an MFA in Art and Ecology from Burren College of Art (2025) as a multimedia installation artist my focus has shifted. I no longer create strictly from a place of anger at the state of the world but from a place of happiness and hope, asking for positive environmental change in all aspects of human connection to the world.

Verdant greens form the foundation of my visual language, unifying the variety of methods and materials that make up my expansive practice. I adopt a mycelial approach with my art, allowing it to evolve and grow in many directions. I follow what the vision or concept needs to come to life. This exploration has included illustrations, drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, installations, and performance. As an ecosystem of art making, the diversity of media inform each other, emerging through the visual world that I have crafted.

The artworks that I create are influenced by my practice of close looking, which is often moving slowly through the woods, crouching when needed, to allow my eyes to adjust to the intricacies of the forest floor, in hopes of spotting fungi and other curious friends. The little moments of nature within their greater ecosystems provide endless inspiration. So much can be learned through this close observation, and further still through rendering an impression of them through artmaking.

The international Art Nouveau movement, which formed in reaction to early industrialization, and in defense of nature, has influenced my artistic approach in depicting organic forms, and why. Similarly, my swooping lines, patterns, and intricate motifs entice the viewer into contemplating nature’s presence in a rapidly evolving, heavily industrialized world. Seeing how artists in the past responded to initial threats of environmental loss by creating beautiful homages to nature brought me to how I create today. Art Nouveau feels like a love letter to nature, and my sense of nostalgia continues this adoration, tinged with grief.

These influences are incorporated into my own practice by filtering them through the lens of my Queer, Neurodivergent, and Ecofeminist identities. Through this process, I apply this synthesized aesthetic to art that addresses contemporary issues that impact many. From environmental loss to human rights issues, I employ my art as a method to evoke empathy and forge connections. My artworks – regardless of how they manifest, invite viewers to feel some of the love and kinship that I do for the natural world that we are a part of, and for those who exist here with us.

Sara K Dunn (b. 1995) is a visual storyteller who utilizes a wide range of mediums, from detailed intaglio prints to delicate porcelain forms, to convey her wonder of the interconnectedness within the mycological world and the ecosystems that they inhabit. Her primary focus during her time here is on the inherent Queerness that fungi and mycelium present, which is conveyed in her art through modifying traditional practices, essentially queering her processes.

She is currently pursuing an MFA in Art and Ecology at the Burren College of Art in Clare, Ireland. She earned her BFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, in 2017. Sara has exhibited extensively in the USA, and in recent months, has been included in group shows in both Galway and Limerick in Ireland.

My artistic practice investigates the interplay between humanity, materiality, and the environment, where I challenge Westernized concepts of nature and waste. I explore how waste materials, especially plastics, hold potential, agency, and kinship when it comes to imagining an ecologically considered future.  Inspired by Indigenous perspectives like Max Liboiron’s concept of plastic as “kin,” my work emphasizes that these materials are not inert, but part of dynamic ecosystems that persist long after their intended use. This perspective drives me to rethink waste as valuable and deserving of respect, care, and creative reimagination.

Plastics, with their origins in fossilized ancient organisms and their ubiquity in modern life, are fascinating to me and exemplify this kinship. Their lifecycle, from crude oil extraction to single-use objects and eventual pollution, reveals a striking disconnect in how Western capitalism values materials. The juxtaposition of my own weekly biodegradable groceries with their nearly eternal plastic packaging underscores this imbalance. Through acts of craft, mending, and experimentation, I aim to re-enchant plastic waste material, by acknowledging its deep-time context and addressing its environmental and social implications. By transforming these discarded materials into art installations, I invite participants to see these materials hopefully no longer as waste, but as entities with stories, significance, and a future.

My work is rooted in community-specific engagement.  I repurpose materials like plastic agricultural feed bags and fishing nets from local waste streams, and I often combine them with foraged organic elements and experimental bioplastics when constructing my art installations.  I focus on preserving the material’s identity in my finished work to maintain viewer familiarity and foster a deeper understanding of the material’s presence and possibility. Through localized, participatory practices like art workshops, part of my practice has evolved to engage with communities and help them reimagine their relationships with waste.

Ultimately, my practice advocates for a perspective shift from disenchanted consumption to an ethic of care and kinship with materials. By bridging art, craft, and ecological thought, I hope to challenge dominant paradigms and inspire action towards a regenerative, circular economy. Through re-enchantment, my work aspires to reconnect humanity with the material world and its more-than-human parts, which I hope will help foster a future grounded in responsibility, curiosity, and ecological consideration.

Noelle was born in Portland, Oregon in 1996. She earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art and biology at Skidmore College, NY, in 2018, and has taught and worked in several academic and community studios in San Francisco before moving to Clare, Ireland to earn an MFA in Art & Ecology.  Noelle is a visual artist and a curator, with her most recent co-curated show, Notions: Home, Place, and Speculations, having opened in February 2025 at the People’s Museum in Limerick, Ireland.

In my practice I confront personal discomfort with corporeality, a somewhat universal experience. My work navigates the terrain where body, perception and self converge, and where the human form forces internal interrogation. The work is characterized by its deconstructed depiction of the body. By eschewing straightforward representation in favor of layered, conceptually rich compositions, I invoke a sensory and emotional reaction that resonates with, and occasionally repels, viewers.
 
At its best, the work enriches how figurative representation can act as a conduit for addressing deep-seated human discomforts with physicality, alienation, and mortality. The acontextual and often unsettling nature of my figurative elements serve to amplify the dual experiences of internal and external realities.
 
Ultimately, by compelling viewers to confront their own reactions to corporeality, I seek to offer a space for introspection and a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between self and body. In doing so, my art provides a means to process, confront, and perhaps transcend the discomforts of our physical existence, activating responses that are both personal and profoundly universal.

Dave Manno is a visual artist whose work explores the complex relationship between the body, perception, and identity. Originally from New York City, he earned a BFA from Concordia University before exhibiting in group shows in New York, Montreal, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. His work has also appeared in the publications ArtAscent and YO! New York. In 2023, he moved to Ireland to pursue an MFA at the Burren College of Art in County Clare.

Manno’s art is deeply rooted in the human form but resists traditional representation. His fragmented figures challenge the way we see and experience the body, often evoking a mix of fascination and unease. Through layered compositions and abstracted anatomy, his work invites introspection, pushing viewers to confront feelings of physicality, identity, and mortality.

Recent exhibitions include Flesh and Sensations of the Baroque, a duo show with Berlin-based artist Ireland3000 at The Laneway Gallery in Cork, and The Veil and the Void, a solo exhibition at the University of Galway. As a member of Gallery 126 in Galway, he has also participated in group exhibitions and MFA term shows at the Burren College of Art.

Carter Thompson is a US based Photographer and Writer in the former jewelry capital of the world, Attleboro, Massachusetts; a town whose most recent claim to fame is Restaurateur Guy Fieri visited one of the local diners, and did not enjoy the food. Thompson’s work resides mainly in the mediums of analog photography and storytelling, using silver gelatin prints from his personally shot archive of film. This is interspersed with writings of personal lived experiences and memories to tell his autobiographical story. They are rife with humor, desperation, and brushes with death (either his own, those around him, or animals) though he is not implicated in any of these instances (except that one time he swerved his car to try and not hit a cat, almost killing himself and ultimately the cat in the process).

Conceptually informed by Camera Lucida (Barthes), On Photography (Sontag), and Catch-22 (Heller), Thompson explores the reality of entropy through these media. This biographical lens-based archive attempts to stave off the constantly encroaching reality of memory loss- the most final form ultimately being death itself. His work remains a constant battle between being etched into the viewer’s mind, and falling into obscurity. The act of immortality through practice remains ever alluring, as to truly remain immortal in a painfully mortal world is to live on through others.

Carter Thompson is a photographer and writer based in Attleboro, Massachusetts. After his father introduced him to film photography at the age of nine, he would then go on to be homeschooled, and has kept up with it as his main practice. He attended the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts, graduating with his Bachelors in Fine Art Photography with a minor in woodworking in 2022. Afterward he would then apply and be accepted to the Burren College of Art in 2023, where he is studying his Masters in Fine Art Studio Arts, in which his practice would evolve from solely photography to add a writing practice recounting his life to pair with his traditionally printed analog images.