There’s nothing more encouraging when you first start out with any hobby or skill when you have role models to look up to who have walked the same path as you. As an aspiring artist or even someone who is just getting into art for the first time, there are plenty of incredible Irish women to draw inspiration from and aspire to.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the most famous Irish women artists and the impact that they have had through their creations. Hopefully, by the time you are done with your reading, you have a newfound appreciation for the incredible pieces that have been contributed by these women. It might even light a fire within you to dive right into practising yourself!
Alice Maher
Kicking off our list, we head down to County Tipperary, where the famous Alice Maher hails. If you’ve studied art in any capacity here in Ireland, be it your weekly class during the junior cert program at secondary school or university, you’ve likely already been introduced to Maher's work.
For starters, she's a great example of what happens when you put your head down and work hard on your passion. She did exactly that, starting at the University of Limerick and Crawford College of Art before going on to earn a Master's degree from the University of Ulster. To top off her academic career, she also won a Fulbright Scholarship at San Francisco Art Institute and spent time studying across the pond.
Think of all the times you’ve gone to make something only to find you didn't have the materials you needed. Well, Maher's work will make you think twice about whether or not you need any special equipment at all. She creates masterpieces using elements from nature and home life, like hair, nettles, bees, and thorns. Her art also spans many forms, including sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, and film animation.
Hammering away at the one thing can quickly become draining for anyone. Maher's career shows a constant focus on transformation and change, making her an exciting artist to learn from. She also explores deeply how history and culture shape identities, especially gender-based ones.
Aideen Barry
Another name that you’ll likely have heard any of your art teachers rave about is Aideen Barry and with good reason. She’s widely known for being one of the island’s most vibrant contemporary artists. While every artist dreams of earning a place in Aosdána and the Royal Hibernian Academy, the fact that she has earned both is a testament to her versatility.
You’ll never get bored of her work either, seeing as she combines performance, sculpture, film, and experimental lens-based media with remarkable skill. Her pieces delve deep into themes like domestic labour, environmental changes, and human vulnerability. There’s so much going on beneath the surface of each creation that it requires a few viewings and a study of her life and work.
Her talent was too much to keep all to ourselves here in Ireland.
Her work can be seen in all corners of the world, including the Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris and the Headlands Centre for the Arts in the US.
She’s reaped the rewards of her work, having won the Golden Fleece Award and the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Award in 2021, just about all any artist could dream of, right?
It’s definitely deserved when you consider the knack she has for creating a sense of cognitive dissonance that makes you question what you see. She makes complex ideas available through shared approaches that pull viewers into multi-spatial experiences. A talent we can all enjoy and celebrate the success of! Discover the stories behind Famous Irish paintings and their impact on the global art scene.
Genieve Figgis
The next artist on our list is a true Dub who’s embraced the country’s heritage in her work. Genieve Figgis is a name you most definitely have on your radar if you aren’t already familiar with her work. She blends traditional influences with modern expression.
What’s interesting about her story is that she wasn’t found until an American artist, Richard Prince, came across her work on Twitter back in 2014. He soon became the biggest collector of her work and her life changed forever.
If you were to hang her work alongside that of other artists, it would stand out with the rich, thickly impastoed oil and acrylic paint she uses, giving her art a macabre sense of humour. Her creative process captivates viewers as she works with liquid paints that flow with gravity to create unique textures and bring her pieces to life.
Pursuing your passion is certainly something we all wish to have the opportunity to do in life. But being able to make a killing by doing so is the real dream.
Figgis has achieved her fair share of commercial success with her painting "Wedding Party", which sold for over EUR 477,105.06 at Phillips Hong Kong.
If you're punching numbers into your calculator trying to arrive at how much she might be worth, well you might be shocked to hear the answer. Her work has generated more than EUR 9.54 million since its first auction appearance in 2018. Not too shabby as they might say in Dublin, especially given the timeframe!
Eva Rothschild
Moving from one Dublin native to the next, we arrive at Eva Rothschild, an artist whose work has done quite a bit in shaping modern sculptural art. If you’ve been considering whether or not you need to go to art school to be an artist, Rothschild would be an indication that it helps.
She built her artistic vision through studies at the University of Ulster and Goldsmith's College, London.
While to the untrained eye, once you’ve seen one sculpture, you’ve seen them all, this most certainly isn’t the case with Eva.
How often do you see something sculpted out of aluminium, leather, and perspex?
This is just one of the reasons she’s so popular, as she challenges traditional sculptural boundaries.
Once look at her trophy cabinet you’ll realise that this approach is most definitely working for her. For starters, the Royal Academy of Arts elected her as a member in 2014, and just a few years later, she represented Ireland at the 58th Venice Biennale with The Shrinking Universe. While traditional art forms remain important, modern Irish artists are pushing boundaries in exciting ways.
Niamh O'Malley
Turning our gaze over to the west coast of Ireland, we find Niamh O’Malley, who comes from County Mayo and has an entirely different approach to her creative process that’s definitely working for her. You won’t find too many artists working with a combination of steel, limestone, wood, and glass, and even fewer capable of creating something meaningful with it all.
O'Malley's art comes to life through video projections on painted canvases.
She gets into the space between source and spectacle in her work.
You’d wonder where she learned it all; her mastery of glass as a material stands out, where she uses it to frame views, break up perspectives, and create subtle barriers between viewers and subjects.
Talents like this don’t go unrecognised. She soon represented the nation at the 59th Venice Biennale with her exhibition 'Gather'. Part of her allure is how she incorporates pieces that are unique to Ireland by collaborating with local craftsmen, such as using the famous Kilkenny limestone. She’s certainly one to be proud of, and she serves as an inspiration for aspiring artists and the Irish people as a whole!
Sonia Shiel
Rounding off our list of Irish women artists, we have Sonia Shiel, yet another Dublin-based visual artist who creates intricate paintings that challenge traditional artistic boundaries. She was that one kid in art class who could go against the teacher's instruction and still end up with a masterpiece. Her distinctive style has evolved to reveal shape-shifting landscapes filled with near-sentient storms and unruly phenomena that seem real enough to climb or tether.
Her installations stand out even among some of the artists included in our article thus far. This is because they blend audio-visual elements, props, and text-based components that guide viewers through the experience. Each narrative loop draws you in and makes you part of what she calls a "folie a deux" - a space where physical circumstance and narrative momentum bind you. The recent exhibition "Medusa in Pieces" stands out with its landscape works that feature mobius-like qualities.
These pieces create near-continuous seams and 360-degree surfaces that generate foley and other sounds, including field recordings of birds, human voices, and wind.
It’s safe to say that Dublin’s art scene has little to worry about, with such incredible artists paving the way in their respective areas. For a deeper dive into Ireland's artistic legacy, learn from legendary Irish artists across various eras.
Celebrating Irish Women Artists
One thing that should stand out from our list is that there is no correct way of doing things in Art. If all of these artists had followed the same route, it is quite likely that none of them would have ended up on our list. What makes them special is their ability to carve their own path, drawing from unique experiences and creating something in line with their unique artistic vision.
Hopefully, after your reading, you find yourself with a newfound appreciation for the incredible Irish women who have excelled as contemporary artists. Their work and achievements should serve as inspiration for artists not just here in Ireland but across the world. Many of their stories reflect Ireland's artistic heritage's rise from ancient Celtic traditions to modern experimental approaches. The meaning of their work makes it so much more valuable than the awards or financial compensation they’ve accumulated as a byproduct of the process. Their work empowers others to follow their passions and do what they love with a reimagined ceiling of what they can achieve as artists.
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