Artists Bio
Niamh Hughes is an artist and arts worker based between Meath and Cork City. Her practice involves painting and experimental moving-image concerning abstract and surreal concepts, with visuals that channel subtle horrors and anxieties though humorous compositional devices. Hughes graduated from her BA in Fine Art, Applied Materials: Textile Art and Artefact from NCAD in 2020, with first-class honours and a special commendation for her thesis. In 2022, she was granted placement on the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Youth Bursary Award programme and the Edinburgh Open Workshop Apprenticeship scheme, while later in 2023, she received VACMA project funding from Creative Scotland. Hughes was a recipient of the Meath County Council Professional Artist Development Fund, and the Arts Council Agility Award in 2024. She is currently completing her MA in Contemporary Art Practice at MTU Crawford. Niamh has worked in various creative roles adjacent to her practice, such as Cork Craft Month festival coordinator, laser-cutting technician at EOW and Sample Studios, textile and craft workshop facilitator, costume designer and prop/set fabricator.
Artists Statement
Niamh Hughes is an artist working with experimental moving-image, sound and painting. Hughes’ work has an aesthetic and auditory alignment with the DIY and self-producing culture of the punk/alternative movement, evoked by a collaging and layering of collected sounds, videos, images, and movements accompanied by the vibrating, arpeggiating notes of synthesisers and distorted bass guitar. The night skies and saturated voids in her paintings and video pieces are a direct call to the shared visual language of alternative culture, with darkness being associated with rebellion, mourning, and romanticism.
Hughes’ research and practice investigate how the body and mind take up space in the present moment, amid the pressures of omniscience and immediacy. Each artwork could represent the unseen other - a video suggests a painting; a painting suggests a song. With this, Hughes’ process coalesces into one working body. Hughes witnesses recurring negative space, the instability of structures, and the sanguine ragdoll movements of her body amongst lights, lamps, and shadows.
Hughes’ figures exist precariously in these voids among familiar but uncanny forms like streetlamps, sheds, and suburban miscellanea. Her oeuvre explores the body, indicators of time and space, and existential overwhelm. The lack of defined edges and resolve serve as motifs of possibility, abolishing stable ground and evoking a perplexity that makes room for curiosity – even hope.
CV
Craft Month Coordinator and Assistant for Cork Craft & Design, 2024 - '26.
Costume & Makeup Design for Cork Community Art Link, 2024 -2025.
Laser and Duty Technician at Edinburgh Open Workshop, 2022 - '23.
Design and illustration for Steady Drip - The Sandy Bells Newsletter, 2022- '23.
Cover design for Aimsir Press, 2023.
Education & Training
MA in Contemporary Art Practice at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design, Sept. 2025.
Kickstart Apprenticeship Programme at the Edinburgh Open Workshop, March - Sept. 2022.
BA (First Class HONS) in FA Textile Art and Artefact, National College of Art & Design, Dublin, Sept. 2017 - July 2020.
Level 5 Costume Design, Hair & Makeup ICFE Dublin, Sept. 2020 - 2021.
Awards, Residencies & Bursaries
Meath County Council Professional Artist Development Fund, supported by Creative Ireland, 2024
Agility Award, supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, 2024
VACMA Project funding, supported by Creative Scotland, 2023
Youth Bursary Programme Recipient and resident at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, March 2022 - January 2023
CIRCUIT Festival 2020 Visual Art Project Award
NCAD Staff Prize Nominee 2020
Exhibitions
2025
LHQ Gallery Winter Exhibition at Cork County Library, November - December.
Sample-Studios’ Members Summer Exhibition at The Lord Mayor's Pavilion, Fitzgerald's Park, Co. Cork, July.
Encounters with Failure at South Tipperary Arts Centre, Clonmel Junction Arts Festival, July.
Swift Summer Open Exhibition at the Swift Cultural Centre, Trim, Co. Meath, June - August.
2024
CineSalon Experimental Film Festival, Cork, September.
KFEST 2024, Killorglin, Co. Kerry, June.
2023
LeithLate Festival at the Settlement Projects, June - July.
The Witches Dance - Sett Studios, April - May.
A Hint of Salón – EMBASSY Members Show February – March.
When All is Dust, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, January.
2022
KFEST 2022, Killorglin, Co. Kerry, June.
Easter Exhibition at SIXFOOT GALLERY, Glasgow, April - May.
2021
SURVEYOR 2021 Exhibit, The Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, Nov - Dec.
CIRCUIT Arts Festival, Galway City, October.
KFEST 2021, Killorglin, Co. Kerry, October.
2019
PAPERCUT, Solo Exhibition at The Solstice Arts Centre, Co. Meath, May.
Thro' the sunny flowers the bee-wings drone, The Gallery Listoke, Drogheda June - Sept.
Publications
An Áitiúil Anthology, 3rd Edition, November, 2024
Good Day Cork Zine, 'Reflections', July, 2024
The One O'Clock Gun, Issue 29, 2023
Coin Operated Press: Hallozine 004: Ghost Stories, October 2023
Steady Drip: Issue 7, 2023
Lunasa, Aimsir Press, September 2023
Bealtaine, Aimsir Press, May 2023
Imbolc, Aimsir Press, February 2023
Bealtaine Magazine '(un)Belonging' Issue 2 feature, February 2022
Emerge Art 'UTOPIA' Issue 3 feature, March 2021
NCAD Cribs Inaugural Podcast, NCAD Radio, May 2020 [Available here]
VAI profile here: https://visualartists.ie/arts-directory/#!biz/id/6658643031d801ca29021dc5
Sample profile here: https://sample-studios.com/members/niamh-hughes/
CONTACT
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