A selection of work by fourth year SETU Visual Arts students

The 4th year Degree Visual Art Students from SETU Waterford invite you to explore the role of presenting artworks for exhibition and how conceptually and physically this is taking form in the lead up to their final year exhibition in May 2025.

This exhibition First View/Expanded Studio allows for a glimpse into the ideas, materials and techniques currently being researched and tested by the BA Visual Art students. For the students it creates the opportunity to extend their practices through conversation and playful exploration of their work beyond the SETU Waterford studios situation into the clean white Gallery space. This in turn is a great preparation step to their final Degree show exhibition in May 2025.

Artists
Elliott Jordan, Caspain Joyce, Vladmir Murphy, Tara Myers, Tanja Novacic, Alyssa Walshe, Paddy Phelan, Jamie O’Dea

Alyssa Walshe
In my practice, I use video to convey the themes of nature and childhood. These themes I combined with poetry and performance to create videos that intend to make people feel like they are in a strange fable or storybook.
I use poetry to make sense of the emotions I feel. Being an autistic person, it is often difficult to express myself; this is where the mediums of video performance come in.
I am always taking inspiration from my childhood, a time I often find myself longing for, longing to return too. In creating art, I am healing my inner child.

Vladimir Murphy
My paintings aim to bring colour to the forefront of the work. Using classical ancient Greek and Roman architecture as the foundation for imagery, I shade these structures in bright, almost bombastic colours set against monotone backgrounds with straight lines that create a two-dimensional perspective.
The ancient ruins contrast with the Cubist style of Piet Mondrian and the abstract teachings of Josef Albers, blending elements of both modern and classical art styles.

Patrick Phelan
I have always thought that horses are one of the most beautiful animals, especially when it comes to artistic works, and my project here is to create artwork made of horses, specifically a working gypsy cob. This is also a subversion of the usual idea of equine art, as equine art would often be of the more thoroughbred types or stallions, mainly warhorses or racing horses, where the rider is the focus as opposed to the Horse.
Here, I make art that would show the working horse on its own four hooves, with no human to steal their thunder.
The Materials I use are mainly acrylic paint and charcoal on tracing paper and canvas as well as using stop frame animation and a Zoetrope to create a sense of movement in the work. Black and white are the predominate shades. The reason being that the subject is a black and white cob

Tara Myers
I base my practice around people in a non-human way, using hair and wire to make extended paintings. My goal is to leave a question as to what it makes others feel. I carefully manipulate wire onto a painted background to give the effect of adding on to what was already there. I enjoy having control over the materials, as by using people as a topic, people are not something you can control.
By using flowing lines, suggestive of human features, colours based on the person personality wise the aim is to create a kind of self-portrait but make it so that the viewer is left questioning with a sense of wonder.
I got a lot of my inspiration from the colours, motifs, and use of light and reflections from the art Nouveau movement, with artists such as Alphonse Mucha, I want the viewer to feel enveloped and involved when looking at the piece.

Cas Joyce
My work focuses on something everyone has experienced in one form or another – grief – often experienced through having personally loved and lost someone or something.
The series of paintings I present depict various lost loved ones, both animal and human, whether that be through direct representation of the subject through a painted portrait, or through more subtle depictions that can be left up to interpretation by the viewer.

Tanja Novacic
My work explores the intersections of folklore, memory, and personal experience, blending family history and myth to bridge collective and individual narratives. Through sculpture, textiles, printmaking, and mixed media, I reflect the layered nature of memory.
I weave together mythological references, personal symbols, and varied mediums to explore cultural identity, the continuity of stories, and the adaptability of the past to the present. I invite viewers to a space where history and personal truth merge, and where ancient and contemporary worlds coexist in dialogue.

Elliott Jordan
My work explores the themes of communication/ miscommunication, emotions, human connection and the joy of being alive. My interest in these themes stem from my autism and mental health struggles. I feel my work embodies an idea of healing. I make work using found materials, primarily focusing on collages and paintings with a 3D element.
I like using Imagery of space and human infrastructure as I feel they both embody contrasting ideas of solitude and connection.
My work often features text. This stems from text being prominent in some of my main influences, like internet culture and visual mediums of storytelling.

Jamie O Dea
My work is based on a personal experience of the desire to have more control over my life and direction and the anxieties about your place in the world. The paintings I am creating are a stylized display of all these conflicting emotions wants and desires.
Inspired by surrealist artists and the graphic comic book style I try to capture personality, energy and a sense of aggression and passion within my work. Using the figures and composition, I set out to construct engaging narratives within my work.