In association with Wexford County Council and the Arts Council

In 2013, the Living Arts Project was established as an artist-in-residency scheme in primary schools, supporting the existing partnership between the Arts Department of Wexford County Council and Wexford Arts Centre.  The aim of this project is to provide children with an understanding and appreciation of contemporary visual art. The Living Arts Project exhibition represents a selection of work produced by the participating primary schools and offers pupils a chance to see their work presented in a professional gallery.

The following artists and schools were selected for the 2024- 25 programme: Deirdre Meehan-Buttimer and Ilaria Berardi with St Garvan’s National School, Kate Murphy and Shannon Jade Wilson with New Ross Educate Together, Brid Colloton and Laura Flood with Gorey Central School, Deirdre Travers and Sonya Weston with Barntown National School, and Sonya Weston and Kate Tyrell with Wexford CBS.

The residencies focused on the children’s local environments and explored many themes including history, home, the environment and sustainability. The activities focused on promoting artistic and interpersonal skills enabling pupils to recognize the potential of art to be used as a tool for communication and learning.

A mentorship programme ran alongside each residency which helped to ensure the effectiveness of the project while also providing a positive critique for the resident artist. In addition, it served to refine methods of engaging with the children throughout each residency. The mentors involved were David Begley, Orla Barry, Ruth Carroll, Els Dietvorst, Doreen Fitzmaurice, Michael Fortune, Martina Furlong, Emma Roche, Karla Sánchez Zepeda, Sarah Scallon, and Gerda Teljeur.

The Arts Department of Wexford County Council and Wexford Arts Centre would like to take this opportunity to thank all schools, artists and mentors involved in the project, and the local community for their support and interest in the project to date.

See this year’s exhibition brochure here.

DEIRDRE TRAVERS

Lead Artist, Scoil Mhuire (Barntown)

Based in Wexford, Deirdre Travers is a graduate of Wexford Campus School of Art & Design, SETU. She is a multidisciplinary artist whose work involves elements of performance, sculpture, video and sound, and photography. Through her practice she takes a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues and has worked with widely diverse sections of ages and abilities in the local community. She has participated in creative schools Ireland projects in both Wicklow and Kildare primary schools and has also been assistant artist in the living arts project in 2019-2020 and 2022-2023. Deirdre is also on the Creative Communities artist panel and has been awarded grants by Wexford County Council over the past three years and has untaken projects with CAMHS young teens in both Enniscorthy and Wexford, Dementia Ireland and Saltmills Community Group.

SONYA WESTON

Lead Artist, CBS (Wexford) and Assistant Artist, Scoil Mhuire (Barntown)

Based in Wexford, Sonya Weston graduated in 2019 from Wexford Campus School of Art & Design, SETU. Sonya’s specialist areas of research are in social inclusion, socially engaged art practices, and other creative projects that empower communities. Her multidisciplinary practice includes photography, film, print, sculpture, and installation. Sonya has worked with a variety of publicly funded and private organizations in her capacity as a socially engaged artist. These include Wexford Mental Health Association, CAMHS, the Collective Sensory Group, Wexford Arts Centre, and a number of schools throughout the county. The aim of her art practice is to help develop the creative potential and voice of every individual. To share the magic that is art and hopefully pass it forward.

KATE TYRRELL

Assistant Artist, CBS (Wexford)

Kate Tyrell is a self-taught artist and works from her studio by the sea in Ballinoulart, Co. Wexford. Her practice is very much influenced by where she lives. She creates unique pieces of art using materials found along the coastlines, reflecting the colour palette and textures of the Irish landscape. Seaweed, driftwood, sea glass, stones, and shells can all be found within her work. The process of gathering these natural materials is both weather-dependent and tide-dependent and further drying and preserving is needed in order to preserve their natural colour and texture.

BRID COLLOTON

Lead Artist, Gorey Central School

Bríd Colloton returned to college in 2012 to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an artist and chose printmaking as her focus. She continues exploring new and traditional processes in printmaking studios around Ireland and in her home-based studio. Brid facilitates children’s art workshops in Wexford Art Centre as well as in schools and community groups and is currently artist in residence in Wexford General Hospital, working with long-term patients. Her recent solo exhibition in Wexford Library for WexArt festival and Opera festival was titled Red Thread to symbolize what is often connecting and consistent throughout our lives.

LAURA FLOOD

Assistant Artist, Gorey Central School

Laura Flood graduated with a BA Hons in Art from the Wexford Campus School of Art & Design in 2019 and an MA in Art & Research Collaboration at IADT in 2024. She is currently completing a one-year professional Natural Dyers course with Apple Oaks Fibreworks. She also studied permaculture design in Portugal in 2020 after graduating from college. She is a recipient of the ArtLinks Bursary 2023 and has previously shown work at IMMA Earth Rising Festival, The LAB gallery, and Wexford Arts Centre. She will be the artist in residence for the Art & Play programme at Wexford Arts Centre in 2025. Laura has organically grown flowers to make her natural dyes. She works with natural materials and is informed by permaculture theory.

KATE MURPHY

Lead Artist, New Ross Educate Together

The children in 4th, 5^th, and 6th classes chose to use the project time to improve their drawing skills and began with exercises and pencil drawing techniques to help build confidence in their own abilities. The children worked steadily in individual notebooks as they learned different techniques that enabled them to record their progress and ideas over time. The classes also explored how texture, colour, and mixed materials can add context and interest to a pencil drawing. Each child chose a beloved person, place, animal, or object to learn to draw in pencil. Then they used texture-rubbing, mixed collage materials, and acrylic colours to further reflect the qualities of their subject. The resulting artworks are a blend of the children’s dedicated technical learning and their madcap, fun self-expression!

SHANNON JADE WILSON

Assistant Artist, New Ross Educate Together

Shannon Jade Wilson is an artist, poet, and educator in science and the arts. Working across painting, printmaking, murals, and media, she is trained in visual arts from the National College of Art & Design, with a master’s degree in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology from Oxford University. Her work is expressionist and impressionist, aiming to capture the magic of life and put feelings at the heart of everything she does. Her mission is to make creativity accessible to all and to help change the way it is viewed by people—not just a talent for the few, but an important aspect of life and wellness for everyone.

DEIRDRE MEEHAN-BUTTIMER

Lead Artist, St. Garvan’s National School (Carrowreagh)

The residency at St. Garvan’s National School explored ‘hidden worlds’ as a theme. The classes concentrated on early medieval Ireland, linking local history, folklore, and place. This period spans from the 5th to 8th centuries to the beginning of the Viking Age with the gradual emergence of primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions. Ringforts were the main communities of place, and wildlife included stags, hares, and wild boars.  This research inspired monotype prints of landscapes, Ogham inscriptions, and imaginative creatures, as the children explored’ ‘interpreting’ versus ‘copying’, abstraction and realism, movement and context. They also researched mythological early medieval creatures, for example, the Cata (the River Shannon monster), Oilliphést (dragon-like monster), and Ellén Trechend (triple-headed beast), resulting in large free-flowing fine pen drawings collaged into a collaborative piece on paper, and air-drying clay sculptures.

ILLARIA BERARDI

Assistant Artist, St. Garvan’s National School (Carrowreagh)

Ilaria Berardi is an Italian artist based in Wexford, where she graduated from the Wexford Campus School of Art & Design, SETU, in 2023. Since then, she has engaged in a variety of workshops based on sustainability and natural materials. She works across multiple mediums, such as photography, painting, and sculptural installation, and through research and documentation, aims to explore the connections between humans and nature from different perspectives, be it cultural, sociological, or environmental. Ilaria’s true aspiration is to explore the world of sustainable art by avoiding or repurposing waste. In her work, she prefers to focus on the creative process, experimenting with unconventional materials such as nature finds, found objects, paper, cardboard, or anything that comes into her hands, and wishes to develop her practice through the inclusion of the community in her projects. In 2021, Earth Bin, a community project in collaboration with Wexford Tidy Towns, appeared on Green-Campus Ireland.

If your school is interested in participating in the Living Arts Project 2024-25 please contact Curator Catherine Bowe on +353 (0)53 9123764 or email catherine@wexfordartscentre.ie or visit www.livingartsproject.ie.

The Living Art Project is funded by the Arts Department of Wexford County Council, The Arts Council and participating schools.  The project is programmed by Wexford Arts Centre.