RÉ

Exhibition of work by Graduate Residents of MTU Crawford College of Art and Design 2024/25

Ré is curated by gallery resident Joanne O’Mahony. It runs from the July 10th to July 24th. The opening is at 6pm on July 10th at the MTU Gallery, 46 Grand Parade, Cork. 

Work by Artists:​

Leslie Allen Spillane​, Clare Brennan​, Maureen Clark, ​Kathy Cronin​, Holly Halligan, ​Dee Hurley​, Mollie Keech,  Michaela McCann​, Isobel McCarthy​, Erina Ni Mhaonaigh​, Murrough O’Donovan​, Maggie O’Hea​, Joanne O’Mahony​, Lisa O’Sullivan​, Lara Quinn​, Ailbhe Reilly-Tuite​, and Jonathan Stack.

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Ré is an exhibition of work by the graduate residents of MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (CCAD). Graduating from CCAD in 2024 with degrees in Fine Art and Contemporary Applied Art, these talented artists spent the year in residency positions throughout the college. The residencies included drawing, sculpture, photography and ceramics.

The first year after graduating is, to say the least, an interesting one. It can be disorienting. To be awarded a residency can give the graduate time to mature in their practice with the support of the college. In return, the graduate gives their time and skill to the college. This time also solidifies the fact that they are no longer only graduates of CCAD. They are artists. And this is a group of artists with very bright futures. The title of the exhibition Ré is the Irish word for era. It could also be said to be deireadh ré (end of an era) but it’s more tús ré (start of an era). This is these artists era, their time.

Ré is curated by gallery resident Joanne O’Mahony. It runs from the July 10th to July 24th. The opening is at 6pm on July 10th at the MTU Gallery, 46 Grand Parade, Cork. 

Artist Bios:

Leslie Allen Spillane

Leslie Allen Spillane is a visual artist based in Cork City. She graduated MTU Crawford College of Art and Design in 2024 with a First Class Honours in Fine Art. She works in lens-based media and printmaking, focusing on environmentally sustainable photographic techniques. 

Allen Spillane was the recipient of eight awards for her degree show in 2024, including a Crawford College of Art and Design Graduate Residency award for Photography, Cork Printmakers Bursary Award for 2024/2025, Sample Studies and Cork Film Centre membership awards and exhibition awards in Lismore Castle Arts, MTU and GOMA, as well as being long listed for the RDS Visual Art Awards and Photo Museum Ireland’s Early Career Artist Award. Her work has featured in Source Photography Magazine’s BA Graduate Showcase. She is currently the photography resident in MTU Crawford College of Art and Design. 

instagram: @leslie_allen_spillane 

leslIeallenspillan.ie

Clare Brennan

Cork based artist Clare Brennan, was born in Kilkenny and has recently graduated from MTU Crawford College of Fine Art and Design, MTU, where she graduated with a First Class Honours in Fine Art in 2024. Following off of her MTU degree show she received an artist residency in Backwater Studios and an exhibition in the James Barry Centre in MTU. She also received a purchase prize award from the Cork City Council, MTU and the OPW 

Instagram: @clarebrennanart

Maureen Clark

Maureen Clark is an emerging visual artist based in Cork, Ireland. Her visual art practice focuses on the layers of time within the limestone pavements of the Burren, in county Clare. Through a sensitive and experimental approach, Clark combines the hand drawn mark and photographic image with the precision of laser etching to create lines of time. Clark questions her connection to the land through photography and drawing creating layered screen prints on paper and in kiln cast glass, evoking layers of time hidden within rocks and the hidden connection to the past.  

Clark graduated from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design in 2024 with a BA (hons) in Contemporary Applied Art. She primarily works with kiln cast glass and handmade paper, combining new technologies with the traditional processes of screen print, drawing and photography. Clark was awarded the National Sculpture Factory 3 month Graduate Residency, M.T.U. CCAD Glass Residency and M.T.U. CCAD Steam Group Exhibition award.  

Since graduating Clark has begun teaching part-time with Cork Education and Training Board, became a Sample Studio member and exhibited work internationally including showing work in America and Ireland.   

Instagram: @maureen_clark9628 

Email:  maureen.clark181@gmail.com 

Kathy Cronin

Kathy Cronin was born and raised in rural Kerry before graduating from the MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (CCAD) in 2024 with a first class honours in Fine Art. Her upbringing in a multi-cultural household has nurtured a persistent search for the essence of familial sanctuary transcending physical space. Through painting, she articulates the perseverance of home amidst intergenerational diaspora, drawing on the lived experience of the matriarchs in her family to reinterpret biblical and mythological narratives.  

Cronin was awarded a painting residency in CCAD in 2024 and holds a membership with the Backwater Artist’s Network. Her work received recognition through an Eli Lilly purchase prize, a place in the EMERGE group exhibition IN the MTU GALLERY AT 46 Grand Parade, August 2024 and was featured in the group exhibition, ECHOES in the James Barry Centre. MTU BISHOPSTOWN CAMPUS CORK, in September 2024.  

Since graduating, she has performed with the Orchestra Of Disquiet and engaged with The Kinship project through participation in a series of workshops entitled Calling the Bird Ancestors. Cronin recently completed the Principles of Art Therapy course in MTU and is pursuing an MSc in Art Therapy; her training in the field of therapeutic arts continues to inspire her practice.  

Instagram: @kathyc_art

Email: croninkathyeli@gmail.com 

Holly Halligan

Holly Halligan is a Cork based artist and emerging curator. Halligan is a recent graduate of MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (CCAD), and received an award in BA (Hons) Fine Art. She was awarded the residency at CCAD with a focus on mould making and metalwork.  

Halligan was an exhibiting artist at the Cork Craft and Design Emerge exhibition in 2024 and is currently in the role of curator for the 2025 exhibition. She was an exhibition artist at the Sample Studio’s graduate exhibition in the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, part of the Culture Night 2024. Halligan’s work was a part of the MTU STEAM exhibition in 2024, as well as the subsequent touring version of the exhibition to Endicott College, Massachusetts.  

Email: halligan.holly555@gmail.com

INSTagram: @HollyHalliganArt

Dee Hurley

Dee Hurley completed a first class honours degree in Contemporary Applied Art in MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (CCAD) in 2024. SHE receivED many awards for her degree show ‘Radiant Other’, including the MTU Registrars Prize and the Textiles residency in CCAD. Her practice evolved from an intuitive connection to plant forms coupled with a strong zero waste ethos. She explores the use of botanical elements to invoke a gentle appreciation and reconnection with the living environment. These sympathetic configurations of plant matter and textile prints seek to imbue a sense of wonder in the viewer and offer a new perspective on what we take for granted. 

Since graduating she has exhibited in Emerge, the Cork Craft & Design Showcase, the Sample Studios Graduate Show, Europa Gallery, Dublin and recently had a solo show, ‘Recompose’, in the James Barry Exhibition Centre, as part of the Registrars prize. Her OPW purchase has been chosen for the cross border contemporary art touring exhibition ‘Connections’.  

Hurley is the textile resident in CCAD and has recently commenced a Masters by Research on the topic of Eco Literacy and the Creation of Sustainable Ecocentric Art. 

Instagram: @deehurlee 

deehurley29@gmail.com 

deehurley29.wixsite.com/artist 

Mollie Keech

Mollie Keech is a ceramic artist from Kilkenny, Ireland. Her artistic journey began with a childhood passion for crafts and creating. She studied at the Grennan Mill Craft School, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny where she explored various crafts, including ceramics, printmaking, metalwork, drawing, batik, and woven textiles. These foundational skills led her to the Crawford College of Art and Design where she specialised in ceramics and textiles. Upon graduating with a degree in Contemporary Applied Art in 2024, she was awarded the ceramic residency, allowing her to continue her studio practice. 

Her work is primarily inspired by surrealist aesthetics. She often combines unlikely elements from the home environment and the natural world. Her work aims to inspire a sense of nostalgia, often using fungi and moss juxtaposed with household items to portray a reminiscence of the places we leave behind as we move through life. 

Email: Molliekeechart@gmail.com 

Instagram: @scallyrags 

Michaela McCann

Michaela McCann graduated from MTU Crawford COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN (CCAD) in 2024 with her BA(Hons) in Fine Art. Upon graduating she was awarded a painting residency with CCAD as well as a solo exhibition with Alliance Francaise de Cork, the MTU purchase prize, the Fledglings Group Exhibition at Lavit Gallery and the Backwater Artists Network Award. McCann is an oil painter and photographer currently working from a studio in Backwater Artists Group. McCann uses Surrealism as a tool to share a neurodivergent perspective. It is natural for the viewer to question the meaning behind the otherworldly paintings which is often how neurodivergent people feel in everyday life, with so many hidden challenges in social conventions that take so much time and energy to adjust to. This allows the neurotypical viewer a glimpse into the neurodivergent experience. McCann ALSO has an upcoming solo exhibition in Studio 12 in January 2026 and a group exhibition with Laneway Gallery in March 2026. 

Instagram: @michaela.mccann.art 

Isobel McCarthy

Isobel McCarthy is a printmaker from Cork. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art in 2024. Isobel is currently the printmaking resident in MTU Crawford College of Art and Design. Isobel was also awarded a residency in Limerick Printmakers. 

Her work explores personal history, childhood memories and the meaning behind everyday objects used in a home. She identifies items that evoke a sense of nostalgia and possess profound significance for herself. The inclusion of animals in her work is a deliberate choice rooted in a sustained childhood interest. The animals in her work symbolise people who hold a profound meaning in her life. By using animals and the domestic within her work, she combines personal experiences with visual storytelling. 

Isobel uses a wide range of printmaking techniques within her work. Using these techniques she deconstructs domestic spaces and recreates them using paper, photographic solutions and tea toners.  

Instagram: @isobelmccarthyart 

Email: isobelmccarthyart@gmail.com 

Erina Ní Mhaonaigh

Erina Ní Mhaonaigh is an emerging visual artist, recently graduated from Crawford College of Art and Design where she was awarded the print residency. Her practice centres around a relationship with food, as both culinary professional and an artist. Ní Mhaonaigh’s work strives to challenge concerns about what we’re eating, where our food comes from, the nature of its’ production and its’ contributing effects to climate change. Expanded Print practice is the method she employs within bodies of work, looking at repetition, text, and the printed object as a means of display within her installation. An engagement with the viewers’ experience opens a conversation focused on the topic of food Politics and how it’s creating harmful implications on our planet. In recent exhibitions Ní Mhaonaigh has been a part of was ‘Ar Scáth a chéile’ a group exhibition about environmental issues which included a pop-up conversation luncheon between Aishling Moore and Erina Mooney about sustainability when it comes to fishing. 

Ní Mhaonaigh plans to enter a masters program in Arts by Research in the near future, to continue a practice that centres around environmental challenges when it comes to the food industry. 

Email: erinanimhaonaigh@gmail.com 

Murrough O’Donovan

Murrough O’Donovan is an Irish artist from Skibbereen in West Cork currently based in Cork City. He graduated from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design with First Class Honours in Fine Art in 2024. For his work exhibited in Lest We Salt the Earth the 2024 MTU Degree Show he received the Backwater Studios Ciaran Langford Memorial Bursary and a Graduate Residency in the Sculpture Department of Crawford College of Art and Design. 

Instagram: @murroughodart 

Maggie O’Hea

Maggie O’Hea graduated from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design with a First-Class Honours Degree in October 2024. O’Hea was commissioned two years in a row by the Tech Industry Alliance of the southwest of Ireland in 2023 and 2024 to make glass awards for their annual awards ceremony. She was awarded a residency in textiles at Crawford College from September to December 2024. O’Hea began her early life living in the countryside in West Cork, where the surrounding nature and flora impacted the sensibility of her artwork; inspiring the colours and form her work would take in the future. Her love of the arts began in secondary school where she was introduced to painting, drawing, batik and art history. O’Hea is a visual artist exploring themes of childhood trauma, identity, traumatic memory and selfhood. She works in a range of media including textiles, drawing, painting, batik, glass, ceramics, performance etc.  

 Instagram: @maggieohea.artist 

Joanne O’Mahony

Joanne O’Mahony is the gallery resident in MTU Gallery at 46 Grand Parade. In 2024, O’Mahony graduated with a degree in Contemporary Applied Art from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (CCAD). She received awards for her work in glass in her final year from the Glass Society of Ireland and the Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers’ (WCGS) and Contemporary Glass Society’s (CGS) annual Graduate Glass prizes.

She began in CCAD with the Special Purpose Award in Textiles and then went into the degree program. A fascination with materials drives her work, leading her through her studies, to go from textiles to metal in studio and to write her thesis on electric light as a sculptural medium. She hopes to combine the experience of working in the MTU gallery with her thesis topic and studio work to study further, exploring the relationship between gallery space and light.

Email: joaomahony@hotmail.com 

Lisa O’Sullivan

Lisa O’Sullivan is a visual artist and musician based in Cork city. She is a recent graduate of MTU Crawford College of Art and Design with a First Class Honours in Fine Art. (2024) She works across a variety of media including Printmaking, Drawing, Sound, Video and photography. Her work explores the interconnectedness between humans and nature through a lens of folklore and ritual. 

O’Sullivan was recently awarded a Cork City Council Individual Artists Bursary 2025. Other awards include Crawford College of Art and Design Graduate Residency award in Drawing for 2024/2025, Cork Printmakers Bursary Award, Sample studios graduate membership award, Backwater Artists Network Award and MTU Graduate exhibition award. She was also longlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Graduate award. 

Instagram: @lisaosull_art 

Email: lisa.osullivan@gmail.com 

Lara Quinn

Lara Quinn is a Cork-based artist and studio-holder at Backwater Artists Group. She holds a BA First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (2024). Quinn's visual art practice spans painting, performance and film. Informed by art movements such as body art and magic-realism, her work addresses themes of identity and womanhood through an autobiographical lens, portraying herself as the character Lilith within the reimagined landscape of a mythological Ireland. 

Quinn's past solo shows include 'Lady Lazarus' at the Lavit Gallery, Cork and upcoming shows include the Laneway Gallery, Cork. Her work has been reviewed in the Irish Arts Review, Irish Examiner and an upcoming Visual Artists News-Sheet. Quinn's awards include the Student of the Year, Best Thesis Prize, being long listed for the RDS Visual Art Awards, The Maclise Art Society Award for Outstanding Skill in Painting and a Cork City Council Purchase Prize which acquired Quinn's work for their private collection at Cork City Hall.

Instagram: @laraquinnart 

Website: www.laraquinn.ie

Ailbhe Reilly Tuite

Ailbhe Reilly Tuite is a visual artist based in Cork. They graduated with a first class honours BA in Fine Art from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design in 2024. They were awarded a residency in film in CCAD for the academic year of 2024/25, as well as several other awards including the Backwater Artist’s Group Moving Image Bursary, the MTU Student Engagement Exhibition 2024 (ECHOES) and the Lavit Gallery Vault Award, set for Autumn 2025. 

Reilly Tuite’s work explores imaginary realms through multiple media and is focused on drawing as an intrinsic form of communication. They are currently working on developing new work for their debut solo show in Studio 12, Backwater Artist’s Group, as part of their Moving Image Bursary. 

Instagram: @tart_fart_

Email: tartie.farts@gmail.com

Jonathan Stack

Jonathan Stack is a visual artist originally from Kerry, currently living in Cork City. In 2024Stack graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design (1:1). He is currently undertaking the Photography residency at Crawford. He hopes to go on to do a master’s in art therapy. 

Stacks multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, drawing, print, laser cut technology and incorporates artificial intelligence programmes. His work explores Irish and Queer identity through examining the idea of ritual and rites of passage in rural settings. His work is used as a lens to examine queer experience and as a way of making sense of the social fabric that we've inherited in Ireland. 

Stack exhibited in the MTU Student Engagement Exhibition “Echoes” at the James Barry Exhibition Centre, as well as the duo exhibition “Mourning Veil” at Another Place Gallery and the group exhibition “To Search,To Find” at the Europa Gallery. 

Instagram: @jonathanstackart