SEE 26, the MTU Student Engagement Exhibition 2026, selected by student representatives and MTU Arts Office, presents graduating artists from MTU Crawford College of Art & Design who’s work addresses issues important to students and an evolving society.
Exhibition features artworks by recent graduates from 2026 BA Hons at the MTU Crawford College of Art & Design: Abilgail McCarthy, BA in Contemporary Applied Art; Aisling White, BA in Contemporary Applied Art; Charlotte Shiels, BA in Fine Art; Claire Murphy, BA in Contemporary Applied Art; Ella O'Sullivan, Elton Sibanda, BA in Fine Art; Evan BamBrick, BA in Fine Art;; Ezra Williams, BA in Contemporary Applied Art; Jess Hoare,BA in Fine Art; Killian O'Donovan, BA in Fine Art; Lisa Newman, BA in Contemporary Applied Art; and Sadhbh Ryan, BA in Fine Art; Curated by PhD student Nicole Flanagan.
Presented by MTU Arts Office, AnSEO Student Engagement Office and MTU Cork Students Union, this exhibition showcases a diverse selection of artists who engage with social, cultural and environmental issues through ceramics, design, lazer cutting, painting, print, ceramics, photography, sculpture, stop motion, textiles, text, and video.
About Artists:
Abilgail McCarthy
I am a textile artist specialising in drawing with embroidery from West Waterford, Ireland. My work reflects my love for my country and her history, particularly her Celtic history. Mythology and female power are the main focus in my works through a gothic, modern lens. Puppetry, pattern design and embroidery enable me to tell these stories of ancient Ireland. The Morrigan, also known as the Phantom Queen, is one of the most dominant and powerful Goddesses of the Celts. Associated with magic, transformation, crows, war, fertility, death, and prophecy she is a fascinating creature of many talents. My work focuses on the contrast between her in terms of life and death, and woman to creature. I capture her seductive beauty through embroidered faces and rich colours, while honing in on abstracted forms to remove her from the idealised ethereal connotations that come with the term 'goddess'. I aim to honour Ireland's rich spiritual history while reimagining its myths for a contemporary audience.
Aisling White
My work focuses on navigating abundance with influences from online media and waste material. I work with assemblages of chosen materials such as figurines, plastic, cardboard, tinfoil, and fabric, particularly second hand or unwanted. Hand-built ceramics are secondary, inspired by my assemblages to integrate them into a larger sculpture. I enjoy the flimsy nature of my work using glue and tape to secure, letting everything unify into a large mass. Overstimulated but undernourished is dedicated to my interest in how the internet is so full of stimulating content, trends and adverts yet is such a nothing burger to consume. Algorithms monopolise the basic currency of human connection, our attention. Attention is an exercise in free will as we give our time, effort, and faith into app algorithms. I aim to challenge personalised feeds that fracture shared reality, weakening common norms and trust in one another.
Charlotte Shiels
My practice lends itself to the oddities of the Internet. From the strange compulsion to appear as coquettish and as doll-like as possible, to obscure fan-groups who savour their affections for ponies and doe-eyed anime girls. I examine the ways in which niche, online communities sexualise female characters depicted in girls media. The disproportion in my figures parodies the impossible and lewd ways these characters are represented online, whilst defying such sexualisation. Within my work, they are no longer objects of sexual gratification for the anonymous Internet user. They are large in scale, grotesque and ever-vengeful. The ways in which I allow acrylic to intermingle, overlap and drip on itself, reference the distortion these characters undergo online. Thick, drooping layers of paint and acrylic medium reflect the abject chaos within these online communities, and within my research. The aim of my work is to call upon a sense of nostalgia young women may feel for classic anime, or cartoons such as ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’, to free the characters they should’ve been allowed to love, from strange, digital perversion.
Claire Murphy
My work is defined by the exploration of process and colour interaction through the medium of print and stitch. I monoprint over wire grids and running stitch, breaking objects down into their simplest geometric shapes, then overlap and experimenting with their strong graphic sensibilities to form interlocking patterns. My joy in art comes from the visual excitement of layering and the various possibilities of a simple square mirrored and reflected. These grid-like compositions are meant to mesmerise the viewer, and I use open weave scrim fabric, often used disposably in printmaking process, which shows the importance of process in my practise as well as introducing movement to the fabric.
Ella O'Sullivan
I use printmaking in my practice to explore ecological concepts surrounding people and nature. I create mixed media pieces that investigate this relationship by using symbolic imagery and a gothic inspired aesthetic through expanded printmaking processes. My work looks at inter-species ideas through the collaging of figures merging with natural aspects, in an attempt to examine the relationship we share with the natural world A fascination with the past and the evolution of how things have turned out bleeds into my work, especially that of history, which has been forgotten. This appears through my practice in a comparative dialogue with the growing disconnect we have with nature. Influenced by ideas from the likes of Timothy Morton, mixed with the gothic aesthetics of Ann Radcliffe, my practice is a hopeful ode to the natural world and an exploration of the rifts that have formed between us and it.
Elton Sibanda
Each of my prints is an investigation of identity, mood, and the subtle complexities that define human experience. I am fascinated by the interplay of light, shadow, and color, and how these elements can be manipulated to bring feelings and atmospheres that relate with viewers on a personal level. Surrounded by sketches, canvases, and paint supplies, I am always inspired by the process of creation itself, the transformation of blank surfaces into visual narratives that speak to both me and others.
Evan BamBrick
I primarily work in projection on a large scale. The conceptual focus of my work explores how architectural spaces can shape and reflect upon our society, acting as silent form of power which can be constructed to control our bodies and emotions, going further to ask how the constructed space can be seen as a reflection of our emotions through nostalgia and control. Through editing, abstraction, bright colours, kaleidoscope and glitch effects, I deconstruct buildings to reveal hidden aspects of control, influence, and humanity within their design. My aim is to create immersive spaces that change the way we see and experience buildings within the urban landscape, transforming the mundane into something that stands out and evokes a childlike wonder for the constructed space. By capturing, constructing, documenting, and analysing these spaces, I hope to create awareness of the subtle ways architecture reflects our experiences as humans, shaping our movements, interactions, and perceptions of the world around us.
Ezra Williams
I am a 24 year old musician and artist from Wicklow. The art and music I create is mostly inspired by my mental state; I make art as a form of therapy. I like to work mainly with textiles and in 3D, though I also enjoy using ceramics and glass. My music inspires my artworks and my art works inspire my music. I cannot make one without the other. Currently I am working on animated visualisers based on songs from my newest album. Each frame is created using either felt, sewing or knitting. I plan on continuing to make my textile animations as a part of my art practice post graduation.
Jess Hoare
By exploring aspects of commodity culture, gender stereotypes and the male gaze, my work is a commentary on mass consumption and the commodification of women in the media through the lens of American pop culture. Bar codes, labels, and price tags play a significant role in my work as a means of highlighting how the female form is often seen as a material/tangible item. Through my practice, I work with found materials, spray paint, sublimation printing, and video. In contrast to the vibrancy and playfulness of my work, I confront how I perceive my own body in comparison to the unattainable beauty standards embedded in society through installations resembling of retail environments.
Killian O'Donovan
Killian Donovan is a 4th year Visual Communications student with a particular interest in editorial graphic design. His project, Whatever Happens Happens, is a monthly editorial magazine focused on the challenges faced by many teenagers in Ireland, offering insight and guidance through a subtle stoic lens. The publication explores how outlook affects young lives and looks particularly at the space between impact and reaction, encouraging readers to reflect on their responses to whatever outcomes they might face.
Through a combination of editorial writing, visual narrative, and carefully considered graphic design, the publication creates a healthy space for honesty, reflection, and guidance without becoming overly prescriptive or patronising. The project aims to make complex emotional experiences feel approachable and relatable for a younger audience through thoughtful typography, imagery, and editorial structure.
Rather than presenting direct solutions, Whatever Happens Happens invites readers to slow down, reflect, and engage with their own responses to the world around them. At its core, the publication is both an editorial design project and a commentary on contemporary youth experience in Ireland, using graphic design as a tool for empathy, conversation, and self-awareness.
Lisa Newman
I am a contemporary applied art student from Ireland working mainly in ceramics. Through my current practice, I explore the idea of curiosity and discovery through various sculptural forms that are inspired by historical cabinets of curiosity. I’m drawn to the way these collections are an amalgamation of gathered objects that are not curated by type but are just objects of beauty and mystery. In my work, I hope to encourage people to take a closer look and find meaning in the small details.
Working with clay and hand building I create sculptural forms influenced by architectural features such as columns, brackets and decorative structures with carved details that invite close visual exploration. By applying ceramic decals made from my own drawings of various historical objects, such as keys, locks, and natural forms, I aim to convey a sense of collection and hidden histories.
My work is a combination of my love of history, Victorian design and craft alongside a sense of play and wonder. Each piece of work becomes a small world of discovery, where curiosity itself is part of the experience.
Sadhbh Ryan
My practice primarily takes the form of painting, working with acrylic, image transfer and board. Through my work, I aim to explore the bittersweet feeling of growing up as a young girl in the early, irony-poisoned, digital age, witnessing the rise of the online 'meme' culture we are now familiar with while navigating influences of both the Internet and the Church.
Text and satirical reproductions of iconic images related to these online communities, ranging from film and television stills to nostalgic characters from 1990s-2000s anime, are used to critique the way girls are often mysticised on websites such as 4Chan and similar online political spaces, which often hold extremist views of women, encompassing fantasies of both reverence and violence toward them, as well as the general violence that stems from radicalisation and isolation online.
Thia Potter Finn
