SONIA SHIEL
Sonia Shiel is an Irish visual artist, based in Dublin. Her intricate paintings of the sublime reveal a shape-shifting landscape, in which unruly phenomena and near-sentient storms are the type of tangible things people might climb to, or tether. When multidimensional, Shiel’s paintings form traversable terrains, maintain a studied self-reflexivity, and consolidate performative installations that use audio-visual, prop, and text based elements to orient the audience. On stepping into one of Shiel’s narrative loops, the viewer too confronts the uncanny - in a folie á deux, bound by physical circumstance and a narrative momentum, that thrashes through form and façade to explore creative agency, authenticity, and free-will.
Recent solo exhibitions include: I Am What You’ve Come To See, at Void, Derry – the artworks collude with the viewer through a series of automated and magical actions; Rectangle Squared, at the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork – an artist is presented with an opportunity to make something important amid absurd procedural impositions; and The Incomplete Platypus, at Rua Red, Dublin – an artist’s studio is shared with a passing rock, that marks time and knows no bounds. Group exhibitions include The Glucksman, Cork; The Lexicon, Dublin; The Cable Factory, Helsinki; Kulturbunker, Frankfurt; and IMMA, Dublin. Sonia Shiel is a member of Temple Bar Gallery and Studios. She is represented by the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, and supported by the Arts Council's Bursary and Project Awards 2022. She is a Fellow of Fordham’s Art and Law Program, and an associate artist at UCD’s School of Drama.
www.soniashiel.com
Kunstverein Aughrim worked with artist Sonia Shiel throughout 2023, devising workshop methodologies that will inform the production of work for a major new solo exhibition. Projects with Kunstverein Aughrim include a series of three Pulse Events, Supernatural Bureau, and Autumn Preview with Sonia Shiel.
Kunstverein Aughrim’s collaboration with Sonia Shiel is made possible with the support of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.