About
Artist Statement- Biography- Contact- CV
Artist Statement
Where we are matters.
Kiera O’Toole is an Irish visual artist whose practice explores how places are felt before they are named. Working through her methodology Drawing in-Space (DiSp), she creates Affective Cartographies, which include site-responsive drawings, installations, and constructed works that register the spatialised emotions and atmospheric conditions of place.
These drawings are not representations but residual documents of lived encounter. They trace how affective and environmental forces impress themselves upon the body, revealing atmosphere as a relational and pre-reflective field rather than a private emotion. Each mark arises through attunement and an embodied sensing of how space acts upon and with us.
O’Toole’s practice treats drawing as an aesthetic of attention, a way of perceiving the entangled relations between body, matter, and environment. Resisting the modern divide between object and subject, her work positions aesthetics as immanent to being itself. In this way, drawing becomes a more-than-human act, an ecological and ethical practice that listens, translates, and gives form to the felt life of place.
Her ongoing goal is to create a living atlas, a body of drawings that together form an affective cartography of Ireland and beyond. Each work contributes to this evolving record, making perceptible the subtle atmospheres and material presences that shape our shared environments.
Biography
Kiera O’Toole (b.1977, Dublin) is a research-based visual artist and lecturer at ATU Sligo. Grounded in phenomenology, her practice combines philosophical inquiry with experimental and expanded drawing, including site-responsive works, installations, and stop-motion animations. O’Toole explores how the felt and spatial qualities of place can be registered through drawing, revealing our embodied entanglement with the world.
Her work has been exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally, including at Ormston House as part of EVA International, the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), DRAWSPACE Sydney, FRISE Hamburg, DAS ESSZIMMER Bonn, Leitrim Sculpture Centre, CCA Derry-Londonderry, Art Walk Porty (Scotland), the National Museum of Australia, and Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre.
Her writing appears in Project Anywhere IV (University of Melbourne and Parsons School of Art, NY, 2021), Body, Space, Place in Collective and Collaborative Drawing (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020), and in the forthcoming volume Art, Connection, and Creative Encounters: Mapping Social Imaginaries in Uncertain Times (RMIT, Australia).
O’Toole has presented at numerous international conferences and is a professional member of Visual Artists Ireland and the Drawing Research Network (UK). She is also co-founder of the artist collective Drawing deCentred.
CONTACT
ATU Sligo, Assistant Lecturer, MA Creative Practice.
Fine Art Doctoral Researcher, Loughborough University, UK
CV
EDUCATION
2020-2026.PhD Doctoral Researcher, Creative Arts, Loughborough University (UK)
2013 Masters of Philosophy, Fine Art, Newcastle University, (AUS)
2000 Bachelor of Fine Art, Honours, Dublin Institute of Technology (IRE)
Upcoming Exhibitions
2026 Solo. LCGA – Limerick City Gallery of Arts.
2026 Drawing Centre, Diepenheim (NL)
2026 Luan Gallery, Athlone
Solo Exhibitions
2023 RHA, Weaved Drawing, Atrium, Dublin
2021 CCA Derry. Commission for site-specific drawing, Derry. NL
2020 Drawing Wonder, Project Anywhere Global Exhibition, Uni. of Melbourne and
Parsons School of Art (USA)
2019 Quietus, Commissioned by Sligo Arts Service
2019 Warning, curated by Rosie Naylor, Edinburgh. SCO.
2016 Betwixt and Between, Tinahely Courthouse Arts Centre, Wicklow
2014 Lines of Negotiation III, Centre for Creative Practices, Dublin
2013 Romantic Ireland Dead and Gone’, Mount-Kuring Regional Gallery, AUS
2013 Romantic Ireland’s Dead and Gone, Gosford Regional Gallery. AUS 2012
2012 Beyond the Pale: Australia, The University Gallery Newcastle. AUS
TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2019 Someone who was standing apart from me, (Greig Burgoyne, UK), MART.
Commissioned by Livestock
2017 Artist Select, Arno Kramer, The Model Home of the Niland Collection
2017 Sonic Drawing, in collaboration with Donna Legault, Leitrim Sculpture Centre
2014 Lines of Inquiry (two-person), Art Studios Cooperative, AUS
2013 Marian Thread, Institute of Global Irish Studies, University of NSW, AUS
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Weaved Drawing, / Leitrim Sculpture Centre
2023 RHA, invited to exhibit for annual open call
2023 Atmospheres: 1, Drawing deCentered, Leitrim Sculpture Centre
2023 Invited by curator Sarah Searson, Boyle Arts Festival
2022 Beyond Drawing, curated by Arno Kramer, Uilleann West Cork Arts Centre.
2022 Walking Kesshcorran, A collaborative project and exhibition
2021 Landscape, Ecology & Environment, residency and exhibition, LSC
2021 N I N E | Matters’, Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo
2021 Wonder Stones, public art, Caidre Arts festival,
2020 Drawing Wonder, Platform Arts Belfast
2020 Highlanes Gallery Open Submission
2020 Beyond Drawing, curated by Arno Kramer, Ballina Arts Centre,
2019 Drawing deCentered, The Courthouse Gallery
2019 Weaved Drawing A5, The Drawing Box, International touring exhibition: IN, UK, AUS
2019 Reimgianing the Canon, curated by Annemarie Murland, University Gallery AUS
2018 Drawing as Interruption, Independent Studios Dublin, The Model Studios
2018 (tele)consequences, drawing performance’, University of Brighton, UK
2017 The Embodied Experience of Drawing, Ocean Studios, Royal William Yard, UK
2017 Coolaney Drawing Project, Sligo, A public participative drawing project
2017 Testing, Catalyst Arts 2017 (NL)
2017 HOMELAND, Damer House Gallery, Roscrea,
2017 Drawing Conversations, Centre for Creative Practices, Dublin
2017 Cairde Arts Festival, The Model, Sligo
2017 Insider/Outsider, Caidre Arts Festival, The Model, Sligo
2016 Lines of Negotiation: Mapping the Land, Municipal Gallery, dlr Lexicon, Dublin
2016 Enniskillen Visual Visual Arts Open (NL)
2016 Drawn Conversations, Coventry University, (UK)
2016 Leitrim Sculpture Centre Open Art exhibition, Leitrim
2014 Lines of Negotiation II, Irish Museum of Contemporary Art, Dublin, Ireland
2014 ‘My last begging, Ha!! Ha!! the piano has been drinking’, Maitland. Gallery AUS.
2014 Opening the Box, 4 Point Gallery, Newcastle (AUS)
2011 Not just Ned: the true history of Australia, National Museum of Australia AUS
Awards/ Residencies Bibliography
2024 Arts Council of Ireland Bursary Award
2022 Awarded artist- residency, Leitrim Sculpture Centre,
2022 Agility Award, Arts Council of Ireland
2021 Agility Award, Arts Council of Ireland
2021 Video Practice Opportunity Award. Funded by Creative Ireland
2020 Finalist Project Anywhere; global peer-reviewed exhibition and conference
2020 University of Melbourne and Parsons School of Art, NY. (USA)
2020 Primary Colours Artists Bursary Award, Sligo Arts Service
2020 The Travel and Training Award, Culture Ireland
2017 ‘Sonic Drawing’, Residency, Leitrim Sculpture Centre
2015 Wicklow County Council’s New Strategic Project Award
2013 RTS Funding Grants (Newcastle University, NSW, Australia)
2011 ‘Impressability’. Six month residency, Funded by ARTS NSW, (AUS).
2010 ‘HOMEward Bound’, 2yr residency, RYSS.Funded Gosford Council. AUS
2005 Public Art Project . Blanchardstown Youthreach, Fingal Co Council
SEMINARS / ARTIST TALKS
2025 Seminar Presenter: nature drawing nature - April 3rd
2024 Seminar presenter: Architecture, Urbanism, Public Art, participation, Drawing, and the Environment, University of Lisbon, University of São Paulo, 8th Nov 2024.
2023 Conference presenter, Drawing in Relation: Affect & Agency
2023 'Making Connection’; Mapping Creative Encounters, RMIT, Melbourne, (UAS)
Leitrim Sculpture Centre
2023 Sculpture Drawing Space (UK)
2022 Conference Chair, Loughborough University, ‘Ecologies of Drawing: Mapping Environments’
2020 Artist Talk- Visual Arts Ireland
2019 CCA-Derry-Londonderry and IMMA for IMMA, National Drawing Day
2018 Conference presenter, Arts in Education, Maynooth University
2017 Conference presenter, Drawing Conversations II, Coventry University (UK)
2017 Panellist, Visual Arts Ireland, Get Together, Creative Ireland, Dublin
2017 Panellist, Bart Lodewijks’ exhibition Sligo Drawings, The Model
2017 Artist talk. The Drawing Box _Online
2017 Artist talk. Drawing deCentered, The Courthouse Gallery
2017 Artist talk. Art Walk Porty, Edinburgh, (SCT)
2017 Drawing as Wonder, The Hunt Museum, Limerick
2017 Sonic Drawing, Leitrim Sculpture centre
2015 Artist select from the Model Home of the Niland Collection
2015 Artist talk. Visual Arts Ireland, Show & Tell, The Model, Sligo
2015 MART Gallery & Visual Arts Ireland, Dublin
2014 Gorey School of Art, Wexford
2013 Conference presenter, The Institute of Global Irish Studies, University of
NSW (AUS)
2013 Guest lecturer, Avondale College, NSW (AUS)
2013 Artist talk. Mount-Kuring Regional Gallery, (AUS)
2011 Conference presenter, National Museum of Australia, (AUS)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2022 Catalogue, Beyond Drawing, designed by Oonagh Young, Published by Uilleann,
West Cork Arts Centre, Produced by Drawing deCentered
2021 Profile: Irish Arts Review, Summer Edition, ‘Public Wonders’. June-July
2021 Book Chapter: Anywhere IV, Project Anywhere. www.projectanywhere.net
2020 Article: NINE, The Visual Arts Newsletter, Visual Arts Ireland;
https://visualartists.ie/out-now-january-february-issue-of-the-visual-artists- news-sheet/,
2020 Book Chapter: “Drawing Conversations 2: Body, Space Place 2’ Ed by Jill
Journeaux, Helen Gorill and Sara Reed, Published by Cambridge Scholars, Jan
2020 Profile; Visual Arts Ireland Cafe’ 16th June
2020 Profile: Inside the Studio, Supported by Artist Network Sligo
2020 Review: Not Beyond Reach, Visual Arts Ireland News Sheet, July-Aug
https://issuu.com/visualartistsireland/docs/van_ja_2020__print_
2019 Article: Drawing deCentered, Visual Artist Ireland News Sheet,
https://issuu.com/ visualartistsireland/docs/van_ma_2019_full, March-April 2019
2019 Profile: Inside Make shift Studio during Covid19 crisis.
2019 Article: Drawing deCentered, Visual Artist Ireland News Sheet
https://issuu.com/visualartistsireland/docs/ van_nd_2019__print_, Nov-Dec
2019 Profile: The Drawing Box https://www.facebook.com/groups/449614368434500/
2018 Profile : ‘Warning’, Visual Arts Ireland News Sheet, https://
issuu.com/visualartistsireland/docs/ van_nd_2019__print_,
2017 Academic Journal: TRACEY: Drawing and Presence, peer reviewed
Journal for Contemporary Drawing. Loughborough University, UK.
2017 Profile: CYBER CRAIC - A DIGITAL IRISH ARTS FESTIVAL.
https://www.solasnua.org/cyber-craic-a-digital-irish-arts-festival-2020/
2015 Radio: Arts House Podcast, June 29th, https://www.oceanfm.ie/2018/06/29/
2015 Profile: Betwixt and Between, Visual Arts News sheet: Catalogue; Jan-
2015 Catalogue: Betwixt and Between, Essay by Brian Fay, Nov
2014 Catalogue : Drawing Conversation, Centre for Creative Practices,
2014 TV: Nationwide, RTE, Centre for Creative Practices, Dublin
2013 Radio: Kiera O'Toole & Annemarie Murland, ABC Central Coast,
2013 Book: Greetings from the Irish in Australia, Edited by Kiera O’Toole and
DrAnnemarie Murland forward Noel White, Ambassador of Ireland AUS,
2013 Radio. Australia, 92.5 FM, Lines of Inquiry, Coast Arts, February
2013 Review: The Star’ newspaper, Newcastle, Australia
2012 Review: Central Coast Express Advocate. June, 34
2012 Review: Newcastle Herald Newspaper. Beyond the Pale: Australia, Dec
2011 Catalogue : Homeward Bound, RYSS, NSW, Australia, October 2012
2011 Catalogue: Impressability, RYSS, NSW, Australia June 2011
2011 Catalogue: Not just Ned: the true history of Irish in Australia, National Museum of
Australia. https://www.nma.gov.au/audio/not-just-ned-irish-in-australia-series, 2nd1