An exhibition that celebrates the work of graduating makers and embraces them as part of  the community of Irish craft and design. Featuring selected works from graduating makers from Crawford College of Art & Design, Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa (Furniture Design), St. John’s Central College (Jewellery Making), West Cork Campus Skibbereen subsidiary of the Cork College of Commerce, and Kinsale College.

The work produced by these talented emerging designers marks the beginning of an exciting  career in craft and design.

Curated by Holly Halligan

Exhibiting the works of - Abhainn Wheeler, Amie O'Connell, Bernie McCarthy, Dawn Buttimer, Fay Byrne, Frank Carroll, Helena Bulger, Jane Skovgaard, Julia Dulgosz,  Katie Drago,  Lorraine Poulter,  Megan Fahy,  Niamh O'Sullivan, Pascaline Horan, Rike Lenzing, and Sarah OConnell.

________________________________________

ABOUT ARTISTS & CURATOR

ARTIST - Abhainn Wheeler - MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

As an Irish ceramic artist, my work is deeply rooted in the mythic landscapes and rich folklore that define the spirit of Ireland. Drawing inspiration from the rolling hills, ancient stone circles, and rugged coastlines that blanket the country, I seek to capture the profound connection between the land and the stories it tells. The shifting light and mist that veil the landscape are mirrored in the textures and colours of my ceramics, evoking the feeling of time suspended between the ancient and the present. Each ceramic object becomes a vessel that carries the earth's memory. The organic forms of the pieces reflect the unpredictable beauty of nature. I invite viewers to not only witness the beauty of Ireland’s mythical geography but to experience it—to feel the weight of history, the pulse of the earth, and the timeless stories that live within the landscape.

ARTIST - Amie O'Connell - Cork College of FET: Douglas St.

Amie O’Connell is a 21 year old irish born artist and jeweller from cork who has been a creative her whole life before stumbling upon silversmithing in 2022 where she fell in love with the craft, believing there is something so raw about jewellery making and metalsmithing; it’s an ancient art form that calls on all the elements in the creative process. My vision for Vampy Vault is to create a distinctive brand combining themes of luxury and the macabre. She believes jewellery is more than just an accessory and more so a wearable art for the body to embrace unapologetic individuality. Large stones,reticulation and brutalist influence are notable features in her avant garde designs. she is often influenced by skeletal and anatomical structures and gothic motifs. Pulling inspiration from ancient Ireland and medieval armors and adornments, organic forms meet primal symbolism a story of decay and rebirth, darkness being reborn into something delicate and hauntingly beautiful to empower the wearer.

ARTIST - Bernie McCarthy - Cork College of FET: West Cork Campus.

Interested in Irish mythology, landscapes and archaeology, Bernie McCarthy lives, paints and writes in West Cork. Her focus is on the mutating link between land and culture. This artwork, “Morrígu”, responds to the Corleck Head, a three-faced stone idol dating from the 1st or 2nd century AD and discovered in County Cavan. Bernie taught Irish literature, myth and legend in UCC and UL and is a recent graduate of Level 5 Art Craft and Design at the Cork College of FET: West Cork Campus.

ARTIST - Dawn Buttimer

This series of ceramic sculptures was created in response to considering the impact human throwaway culture has on our environment. The form and finish of each piece takes its inspiration from the rugged beauty of the West Cork coastline (lichen covered rocks, sea foam at the water’s edge and windswept grasses), but the materials utilised invite us to question our impact on that very fragile beauty.
By rethinking the discarded (used coffee filters and broken glass), I am challenging the viewer to find beauty in the used, to reimagine the throwaway, to recognise potential in the broken and to continue to find ways to tread lightly.
The ingrained societal practice of wrapping and binding gave a meditative, natural rhythm to the making, and led me to further acknowledge how entwined I am to the place I call home.

ARTIST - Fay Byrne

Creating with my hands has always felt important and natural to me, especially after struggling in traditional academic settings. Jewellery has always had a place in my life. I have strong memories of trying on pieces of jewellery handed down through my family as a child. I feel the most myself and the most beautiful when I’m wearing my jewellery. My work is often psychogeographical, and I’m inspired by patterns in nature, organic forms and found objects. I find jewellery making to be a very intuitive process and the jewellery often forms around the object in a way that I have little control over.

ARTIST - Frank Carroll - Cork College of FET: Douglas St.

This simple truth underpins my practice. Art has always been an intrinsic part of who I am, yet for many years, self-doubt kept me from fully embracing it. My creative reawakening began with The Artist’s Way, which helped me reconnect with my artistic voice and rediscover the power of making. Since then, painting has become not only a form of expression but a space for healing, reflection, and personal growth.Working primarily in abstraction, I explore themes of stillness, softness, and emotional resonance. My work is guided by intuition—gestural, layered, and honest. I aim to create pieces that offer a sense of calm amidst complexity, acting as visual pauses in a world that often feels overwhelming. My practice has expanded through formal studies in Fine Art at St. John’s College, deepening my engagement with both painting and sculpture, and enriching my understanding of material and form.The creative process is, for me, a meditative dialogue—an ongoing dance between chaos and control, clarity and ambiguity. Each piece becomes a kind of emotional map: textured, imperfect, and deeply human. Whether on canvas or in three-dimensional form, my work celebrates simplicity not as a lack, but as a quiet strength.To be an artist is to move through the world with open eyes and a responsive heart. It is to find meaning in nuance, to transform struggle into shape, and to offer beauty as a kind of balm. In this way, my art is both a personal sanctuary and a shared invitation—to slow down, to feel, and to find ease where we least expect it.

ARTIST - Helena Bulger - Cork College of FET: Kinsale .

Strength and Power in Bronze: The Oak Knot

This sculpture represents an oak knot—an enduring symbol of strength and resilience—cast in bronze, simply intertwined with the original oak knot. The knot comes from an old oak tree that was struck by lightning. I grew up with this oak tree and it holds personal meaning for me.

My work is deeply informed by my lived experience. As a mature student, I studied level 5 and 6 Art at Kinsale College of Further Education over the past two years, where I explored self-expression through various mediums. Growing up on a farm and having a career in nursing and midwifery, I find inspiration in everyday life, particularly in nature. The oak tree, with its deep roots, has long been a symbol of endurance, grounding, and strength—ideas that resonate deeply with my own journey.

In this piece, I explore the layered relationship between the fragility of life and resilience. By casting the oak in bronze, I aim to preserve not just its physical form, but also the emotional bond I feel with it. The permanence of bronze offers a voice to the delicate relationship between the fleeting nature of life and its enduring strength. The oak knot, a form of quiet strength rooted in nature, reminds us of the importance of grounding and enduring through life’s shifting circumstances. As we remain rooted, we find a connection to something greater than ourselves—an enduring reminder that we are not separate from nature, but shaped by it.

ARTIST - Jane Skovgaard - MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

Walking wild spaces constitutes the main part of my contextual artistic practice. It allows a close connection and deep mapping of these places.I am aware that while walking, I create a pathway, or follow an existing one, reaching back in time to our most primitive selves before our disconnection from the wilderness we emerged from.

Path forming using the body to create a line, speaks to the most ancient of human and animal mark making. It is a momentary imprint of human identity and belonging. It speaks of the past , the present and the future: as a path may have existed before, we walk it now, and it may lead somewhere we may not have been before. As I walk I record the land through photography, which I use to create prints, collages and grids in paper and ceramic which are an attempt at understanding the language of wild spaces.

ARTIST - Julia Dulgosz - MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

Past Forms, Present Lives.

My practice explores the contrasts between past and present values, with my vessels honoring tradition while reflecting contemporary perspectives.

My current body of work draws inspiration from Ancient Egyptian representations of everyday life. The vessels they created, depict everything from simple activities to grand myths, which offer a unique insight into the past.

This fascination led me to sketching everyday encounters in search of common threads across time. The resulting drawings now appear on my ceramics.

Primarily working with crank terracotta clay, I combine ceramics with raditional basket coiled lids to evoke the shape and purpose of Canopic Jars nce used to preserve organs of the deceased during the mummification proces

By blending contemporary design with Ancient Egyptian imagery, a dialogue etween two distinct eras is created. This body of work is deeply personal to ne. It aims to connect people through the physicality of clay and its rich historical legacy. Each vessel invites the viewer to become part of a vast, shared human experience rooted in tradition.

ARTIST - Katie Drago - MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

My work is in response to a burial site marked in memory of “special babies” in my local community, Fermoy. The overgrown grave lies on the grounds of the town’s old workhouse, where a section of the building was used as accommodation for unmarried mothers and their children. Today, most of the original workhouse has been demolished, the grave for “special babies” is unkept, and despite strong calls made in the Dáil by local TDs, what was known as the Nursery Rescue Society was never investigated.
Through extensive archival research, photography and the collection of natural material from the surroundings of the burial site, I unravel what little information remains about the Fermoy Nursery Rescue Society. My work creates a space of encounter for viewers to consider this neglected history – one that has been sitting, unacknowledged, on the doorsteps of countless communities, waiting for us to let it in.

ARTIST - Lorraine Poulter - Cork College of FET: Douglas St.

I am an artist living in West Cork where I have lived for the past 11 years.

My work is the story of the landscape and seascape. I am drawn to the mythologies caught in the landscapes, ruins, sites of ancient ceremony and ritual. I explore the spoken and written mythologies of the locality in photography, paint and clay. Inspired by the colours of nature, their seasonal contrasts, complementary and contradictory, to achieve emotional responses through the symbolism of the colour translating this into the story of my art.

In creating this work, I was inspired by the history of the Market Square in Macroom, Cork. In 635AD druids would meet under a large Oak tree that was sited in what is now the North Square car park. This tree was revered by them. Under this Oak they held their ceremonies, provided wisdom to the people, gave ‘healing’. The Oak tree was important to Celtic mythology as it was believed to be a portal to other realms as well as being associated with strength and endurance.

The Druids are made of clay and formed with the intention of being shapeless and faceless, denying the fluidity of the perception of identity. The Acorn, brings with it renewal, rebirth, new beginnings. As well as growth, strength and good fortune. They complete the Oak tree’s cycle of life. Tree, fruit, fall, decay, rebirth.

I studied the Level 5 in Art, Craft and Design at St Johns, Cork in 2016. Studied Contemporary Applied Art at MTU Crawford College of Art and Design 2017-2021. In 2021-2023 I studied for a Masters at UCC Contemporary Art History, Theory and Criticism. I have just finished level 6 Fine Art at St Johns. 2024-2025.

ARTIST - Megan Fahy- MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

Tá Barróg ag Teastáil ó Chách: Everybody Needs A Hug

As an Irish ceramic artist, my work is inspired by the profound connections we share as humans, particularly the comfort and healing that comes from an embrace. Holding one another has been scientifically proven to enhance feelings of happiness and comfort. I work with porcelain and stoneware, materials that symbolize the delicate balance between strength and fragility, in both body and spirit. Porcelain, in particular, represents human frailty, in which I use to mirror the vulnerability we experience in the face of loss. An archive of personal photographs informs the pose, gesture and composition of the vessels, with each set representing a significant relationship. I am hopeful my vessels will remind others of meaningful connections throughout their own lives. The colour pallete is chosen to induce the feelings of comfort, calmness, connection and love.

ARTIST - Niamh O'Sullivan -  Cork College of FET: Kinsale.

“Art has unlocked a mindfulness and creativity I never knew existed. I am more aware of the people and environments that surround me”.
Niamh O’Sullivan is chemistry teacher who has spent decades expressing her creativity and problem solving while teaching. Art was always on the side, pursued via night courses and “make do” with her children.
A two-year art course in Kinsale College has helped fulfil her dream.
Land and seascape inspire her work. She uses many media, drawing, painting, ceramics and textiles. Niamh is really excited about starting in MTU Crawford College of Art and Design this September.

ARTIST - Pascaline Horan- MTU Crawford College of Art & Design

My work is nature and landscape based. It stems from a deep personal connection with nature and particularly in connecting with nature through walking in the landscape. I currently draw inspiration from the ideas of the Symbiocene and biophilia – concepts that emphasize the potential for harmony between humans and their environment. I am drawn to layered spaces and to excavating meaning which is revealed in natural and human induced processes within landscapes. I work across a variety of media, layering elements such as drawing, painting, sculpture, and video to create immersive installations.
In recent work I focus on a bog where nature is reclaiming its lost territory following the cessation of industrial peat-cutting. The common reed, a plant that was important in the formation of the raised bogs of the midlands, and in providing shelter for our early settlers, has begun colonising the rewetted area. Its rhizomatic stolons are finding their way across seemingly barren stretches of peat and industrial water channels.
Aspects of Irish mythology and folklore inform the work. The Song of Amergin makes an ecological statement about how all of the natural world is connected and how we are connected to it physically and spiritually.

Am gaoth i m-muir I am wind on sea
Am tond traethan I am ocean wave
Am fuaim mara I am roar of sea
Am dam secht ndirend I am stag of seven tines
Am séig i n-aill I am hawk on cliff
Am dér gréne I am shining tear of sun
Am cain lubai I am the fairest of plants

From The Song of Amergin

ARTIST - Rike Lenzing

Rike is a German artist living in Cork, Ireland. She began making jewellery during the pandemic, making colourful and sustainable paper jewellery, transforming 2D paper strips into 3D structures with braiding techniques. Since 2023, she has continued these techniques with silver jewellery, creating pieces that are paper-thin and weightless, while equally robust. Newly acquired skills allowed her to use seaglass and shells from her lifelong collection to add a personal connection to her jewellery which reflects on time, place and object. Techniques from the world of textiles inspire her jewellery, expressing her admiration of domestic and female traditions of handcraft.

ARTIST - Sarah OConnell -  Cork College of FET: Tramore Road.

The Art of Balance and Mindful Stillness

I am a furniture maker and designer with a lifelong interest in art and creating. Recently completing a two-year course in Furniture Making and Design at CSN, I’ve developed a deep respect for materials, process, and form.

My current work focuses on the use of reclaimed wood, celebrating its natural imperfections and character. I’m interested in the balance between structure and feeling — how colour, texture, and form can work together to evoke calm, warmth, and quiet beauty. Each piece is an exploration of material-led design, where sustainability meets craftsmanship.

CURATOR - Holly Halligan

Holly is an emerging curator and artist from Cork City. She has an award in BA(Hons) Fine Art from the Crawford College of Art and Design, and was an exhibiting artist in Emerge 2024.

Holly and the CCD team have been visiting the five participating colleges to select works from the end of year shows and we are so excited to begin the selection process!