CV | Siobhan McDonald | Master’s degree in Art Practice from IADT, Ireland, in 2011
Selected Exhibitions
2026 Passage, solo show, The Lab Gallery, curated by Margarita Cappock
2026 Sonance, solo show, Taylor Galleries
2025 Porous, solo show, Villa Arson, Nice 2025, Oceans & Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan, curated by TBA21
2023 The Bogs are Breathing, solo show, The Model, Sligo, curated by Emer McGarry
2023 Living Canvas Public Art Project, At the Edge of Visibility, Dublin
2022 Invisible Seam, solo show, Ars Electronica, Linz
2022 The Week the Sun Touched The Earth, solo show, Centre Culturel Irlandaise, Paris
2022 Epistemic Collisions, Centre for Contemporary Art LAZNIA
2022 To Bough and to Bend, at The Weisman Museum, USA
2022, Earth: Digging Deep 1781 - 2022, Royal West of England Academy
2022 Studiotopia, Bozar, Brussels
2020 Datami, Bozar, Brussels
2019 Volta, Basel 2019
2019 Monuments for the future, solo show, Limerick City Gallery, Ireland
2019 Science Gallery Dublin, solo show, Science Gallery Dublin: Future Breath
2019 North Star, solo, European Space Agency, Netherlands
2018 When plants remember, solo show, The Henry Fox Talbot Museum, UK
2018 When Plants remember, art.earth, UK
2018 Disappearing Worlds, solo show, Taylor Galleries, Dublin
2017 Crystalline, solo show, Highlanes Gallery, Ireland
2017 Crystalline, solo show, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris
2013 Core, solo show, The Historic Seismic Museum, Germany
2012 Seism, solo show, The Dock Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland
2012 Eye of the Storm, solo show, The Galway Arts Centre
2012 Rhythm, The Drawing Project, IADT, Dublin, Ireland
Selected Awards
2026 Finalist, Global Falling Walls Awards
2027-29 Climate Action Fund III, Not Going It Alone led by Kildare County Council
2024 S+T+ARTS4Water II, European Commission Initiative
2022-23 Studiotopia, Gluon
2023 Project Award, Arts Council Ireland
2023 Bursary Award, Arts Council Ireland
2022 Project Award, Arts Council Ireland
2022 OCEAN MEMORY award, the Ocean Memory Project. USA
2021 EU Commission: Alumni Award 2021
2021 Agility Award, Arts Council Ireland
2017 The Trinity Creative Challenge Award, Trinity College Dublin
2020 Visual Arts Bursary, Arts Council Ireland
2019 Dublin City Council, ‘An Urgent Inquiry’ short-listed
2017 Visual Arts Bursary, Arts Council Ireland
2018 Creative Challenge Award, Trinity College Dublin
2016 The European Research Council
2016 Awarded 4 week residency Centre Culturel Irlandaise, Summer 2017
2015 Awarded BAI Sound and Vision, RTÉ Lyric FM funded by Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
2015 Awarded Public Art Commission, The School of Environmental Science, UCD,
2015 Culture Ireland Award, Exhibition at Connect Festival, Oslo
2013 Awarded Associate AIR Residency, University College Dublin
2012 Bursary Award, Arts Council of Ireland
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Bogskin, Royal Hibernian Academy, curated by Patrick Murphy
· 2025 Art Basel Paris, Centre Culturel Irlandais
2024 Y3K: On Distant Keys, Design Building Gallery, UMass Amherst, Boston (2024)
2024 The Scale of Water, Michael Penny gallery, Bath
· 2023 VISUAL, Behind the Curtain, Open call: selected artist
2022 Studiotopia, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk.
2019 Datami, European Commission, Ispra, Italy
2019 Of Plants and People, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Germany
2018 Shine on Me The Sun and Us. Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Germany
2016 Imago Mundi Project, exhibited Internationally. Curated: Sean Kissane.
2015 Deep Songs, Connect Festival, in collaboration with Susan Stinger, Oslo
2015 Continuum, Live Performance The Lab Gallery
2015 Welcome Disturbances, The Lab Gallery, Dublin
2014 Elemental, Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris
2014 The Annual RHA exhibition, Invited Artist
2014 The Boyle Arts Festival, Invited Artist
2013 Taylor Galleries 'Winter Group show'
2013 Taylor Galleries, VUE National Contemporary Art Fair at the RHA
2013 The Fenderensky Gallery, Belfast, "Les Fleures Du Mal" Invited Artist
COMMISSIONS
2026 The School of Medicine, University College Dublin
2024 Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Hyytiälän Forestry Station Field: Climate Whirl art program, Finland
2024 Centre for Landscape Regeneration, Cambridge University.
2024 RHA Dublin, Bogskin, curated by Patrick Murphy
2023 Trinity Centre for Natural Product Research ‘Unlocking Nature’s Pharmacy from Bogland Species
2023 The Model, Home of the Niland collection
2022-23 STUDIOTOPIA, selected artist, Creative Europe Programme of the EU Union, Brussels, Gluon
2023 Creative Ireland Commission, The Bogs are Breathing
2021 Creative Ireland Commission, The Black Pig’s Dyke
2020 Of Plants and People, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Germany
2020 Gluon, Studiotopia
2018 The European Commission, Ispra
2016 Bank of Ireland, New York
2016 The School of Biology and Environmental science, University College Dublin
2014 The O’Brien Centre for Science, University College Dublin
COLLECTIONS
Alfred Kordelin Foundation, Finland; Encompass USA, Arts Council of Ireland, Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland, University College Dublin, University of Ulster, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Four Seasons Hotel Group, PwC, The Office of Public Works, An Bord Gáis
REVIEWS AND ARTICLES
2026 RTE Culture, Top visual arts highlights
2026 INTERALIA Magazine Text by curator Margarita Cappock
2025 RTE Culture, Siobhan McDonald on the mythologies of wetlands
2023 Irish Times review by Sylvia Thompson: A meditation on memory and time
2022 The Guardian feature: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/19/microphones-dropped-into-ocean-off-greenland-to-record-melting-icebergs, by Rory Carroll
2022 The week the sun met the earth, Science et Avenir, Paris by Dominique Leglu.
2019 Artist Siobhan McDonald on geology, time and the Anthropocene, Culture RTE, by Cristin Leach
2018 Ash to art: Can Mount Etna’s eruptions tackle carbon emissions?, The Irish Times
2018 Breathe the pressure, Sunday Business Post, by Cathy Dillon
2018 Disappearing Worlds Publication, Text by Catherine Marshall. Published by: Oonagh Young
2018 Painting the Mysteries of Science, Arts and Climate Change, by Chantal Bilodeau
2017 Somewhere in the Future, Irish Art Review, feature by Julian Campbell
2017 Arctic expeditions and stars collide to create 'quietly powerful' show, The Guardian, by Barbara Lasas
2017 Repurposing scientific materials into works of art, an artist confronts the Anthropocene,
2017 Crystalline, Interalia Magazine, by Stuart Clarke
2017 Siobhan McDonald’s chance encounters with a changing world, Apollo International Art Magazine
2017 Her Crystalline Mine, The Sunday Times, by John O'Sullivan
2016 My works seek to merge the poetic and the scientific, The Guardian
2016, My Arctic Journey, The Irish Times, The Gloss Magazine
2015 Siobhán McDonald: the art of scientific exploration, The Irish Times
2014 Layer by layer: how Siobhán McDonald paints like a geologist, Irish Times, by Dick Ahlstrom
2014 Welcome Disturbances Publication, The lab, Dublin, by Jane Humphries
2013 Volcanic art: ‘Iceland is like a blank canvas’, Irish Times, by Kevin Courtney
2012 Tim Robinson, Eye of the Storm Publication
2009 Resonant ecologies… towards listening, Circa Magazine, by Jessica Foley
2009 Essay by Rachael Thomas, Head of Exhibitions, IMMA
RESIDENCIES
2026 The Camargo Foundation, France
2026 European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy
2027-29 Creative places Athy, residency ‘Kildare Co Council’
2026 Encompass, Art and Ecology, Ireland
2025 S+T+ARTS4Water II, European Commission Initiative, Dublin Port
2025 Trieste summer school: James Joyce, Italy, invited Artist in Residence
2024 Cambridge University, Artist in residence, Centre for Landscape Regeneration
2025-27 Trinity College Dublin, Artist in residence, School of Natural Sciences
2022-23 STUDIOTOPIA, selected artist, Creative Europe Programme of the EU Union, Brussels, Gluon
2023 La Chapelle residency, Naxos, Greece to study the Mediterranean sea
2022 US National Science polar Foundation, Greenland, 4-week sea expedition, selected artist
2022-24 Smear Forest, University of Helsinki, Open call, invited artist
2019-21 European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy
2017 Trinity College Dublin, The School of Natural Sciences, 2018
2017 The European Space Agency, October 2017
2016 Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris. Summer 2016
2016 The Henry Fox Talbot Museum, UK, Summer 2016
2016 The European Space Agency, Amsterdam, June 2016
2015 The Arctic Circle Residency, The North Pole, July 2015
2014 University College Dublin, College of Science, 'Artist in Residence' 2013-2016
2012 The Historical Seismic Observatory of Emil Wiechert, Germany
2011 SIM Residency, Iceland, Summer 2011
LECTURES, PRESENTATIONS, PANELS
2026 TECHNARTE, Bilbao, International Conference on Art and Technology, 2026
2025 United Nations Ocean Conference, TBA21 | presentation, Ocean Rise & Coastal Resilience Coalition.
2024 The Anthropocene Lab: artist talk: UMASS, University of Massachusetts
2023 The Unnatural History Museum: ‘Mass Extinction’ with Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg and Bergit Arends
2023 Tim Robinson Symposium, Architecture at the Edge, Kylemore Abbey
2021 Artist talk: 'Climate Change: Perspectives from the Arts and Humanities, NUI' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6AJP2kDxzw
2021 Artist talk: JRC EU Commission, Ispra
2020 Artist talk: Ars Electronica, Switzerland
2019 Radical ReThink | Artist Talk with Brian Maguire at Regional Cultural Centre
2019 Art in the Anthropocene: Trinity College Dublin.
2018 Artist talk, Department of History, Trinity College Dublin, Yvonne Scott
2018 Artist Talk: Linear Earthworks, Bronze Age: Heritage Office 2018 Artist Talk: An Urgent Inquiry, Dublin City Council, Caroline Crowley
2018 Artist Talk: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Milan, Italy
2016 Royal Geographic Society, The Nexus of Art and Geography: practice as research
About Siobhán McDonald
Siobhán McDonald’s practice draws attention to contemporary topics dealing with air, breath and atmospheric phenomena, weaving scientific knowledge into her art in a poetic and thoughtful manner.
Artist Biography | Statement
Siobhán McDonald was born in New York. She lives and works in Dublin.
Siobhán works with natural materials, withdrawing them from their cycles of generation, growth and decay. This process gives form to a range of projects which consider our place on Earth in the context of geological time. Her artworks make use of natural phenomena and technologies to stage poetic and philosophical engagements between people and their natural world. Beginning with a specific site of investigation, Siobhán weaves diverse narratives into visual stories, often inviting nature itself to participate in the creative process. Her research-driven practice employs a distinctive artistic language to express intangible processes, utilising painting, drawing, film, and sound.
Presentation highlights include exhibitions at venues The Lab, Dublin (2026); Dublin Port (2025); Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan, curated by TBA21 at Villa Arson, Nice (2025); Art Basel Paris, Centre Culturel Irlandaise (2025); Royal Hibernian Academy, (2025); VISUAL (2024); The Model, Sligo (2023); Living Canvas Public Art Project, (2023); Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR), Brussels (2022 and 2020); Ars Electronica, Austria (2022); Centrul Cultural Clujean, Romania (2022); The Weisman Museum, USA (2022); Centre for Contemporary Art ŁAŹNIA, Poland (2022); Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2022, 2017); Deutsches Hygiene-Museum (DHMD), Germany (2022); Volta, Basel (2021); Limerick City Art Gallery (2019); and the National Trust–Fox Talbot Museum, UK (2019), among others.
Siobhán McDonald is the recipient of prestigious international awards, including the European Commission's S+T+ARTS 4Water Programme (2024) and the inaugural Ocean Memory Award (2022). In 2023, she received further awards through the EU Commission Alumni Award (Italy), the Alfred Kordelin Foundation Climate Whirl Award (Helsinki.)
Siobhán McDonald holds a Masters in Visual Arts Practice from IADT (2011), Dublin, and a BA (Honours) degree in Art and Design from the University of Ulster, Belfast. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.
Siobhán McDonald
mcdonaldsiobhan@gmail.com
Siobhan McDonald on Wikipedia