About — Eileen O'Sullivan

Photograph by Dónal Talbot

About

Eileen O’Sullivan is a contemporary artist, graduating from the NCAD MFA Fine art programme in the National College of Art 2025. Since graduating from the BA from NCAD in 2015, O’Sullivan has developed a notable practice, exhibiting her work both nationally and internationally, with two solo exhibitions in Ireland.
O’Sullivan has been honoured to be shortlisted for the Hennessy-Craig Award from the Royal Hibernian Academy and has her work included in the Irish state collection. Her work has been showcased in esteemed institutions such as Trinity College Dublin and The National University of Ireland.

Eileen is an experienced art engagement facilitator. She has been an invited artist in Residence at the National Gallery of Ireland, with whom she has worked for as a panel artist since 2018. She has worked with community groups, schools and galleries. Eileen is passionate about facilitating others to engage with art and practice their own creative skills. Eileen has worked with commercial galleries SO Fine Art Editions and Hang Tough Contemporary Gallery.

Artist statement

I am interested in the politics of making and mending. I use an expanded approach to painting that incorporates sculptural elements, archival references, and participatory methodologies.

Drawing from spaces such as hardware shops, haberdasheries, and galleries, I explore the intersections of domestic labour, care, and material culture. Manuals like *The Home Mechanic* and second-hand repair guides serve as both conceptual and visual anchors for me, forming anachronistic dialogues between past and present acts of fixing.

Employing materials such as oil paint, Velcro, linseed putty, found furniture, and child-adjacent craft materials, I embrace deskilling, questioning hierarchies in materials and in distinctions between skilled and unskilled labour. I value slippages and process to highlight the attainable, but often privileged, benefits of repair: satisfaction, economy, and joy, while acknowledging that such acts require time, space, and skill.