Fine Arts

Meet the artist with Deirdre O’Mahony: ‘The best piece of advice I ever received? Trust the authority of your senses’

The visual artist’s priorities range from post-punk London to reflecting the urgent issues facing farming, food production and the environment

Visual artist Deirdre O’Mahony. ‘To quicken soil means to make it more fertile. ‘Quickening’ is also used for the first movements of a baby in the womb. ‘The Quickening’ seemed like an appropriate title for an artwork that communicates the centrality of soil to the survival of all lifeforms’

Deirdre O’Mahony is a graduate of St Martins School of Art, London, Crawford College, Cork and completed a PhD at the University of Brighton.

She has an impressive 30-year track record in making work across sculpture, painting, installation, collaborative and participatory projects which at its core explore the politics and possibilities of place.

O’Mahony’s new artwork, The Quickening, was commissioned by the Douglas Hyde Gallery and is a response to the urgent issues facing farming, ...