Theo Hynan-Ratcliffe
Theo is a sculptor, writer, and project coordinator based in the West of Ireland. She received a first class BA Honours in Sculpture & Combined Media from Limerick School of Art & Design, and went on to co-found an artist studio and collective in Limerick city Miscreating Sculpture Studios (2020-2022), during this time she began practicing as a writer/researcher alongside her sculptural practice, she has published work with Circa art magazine, Bloomers, Visual Artists Ireland Newsheet, and in Map Magazine in Glasgow, UK. She has recently presented work at Centre of Contemporary Art Glasgow, Good Press Glasgow, and Flax Art Studios Belfast, amongst other locations both in Scotland and Ireland.
Her practice is currently located at the point of contact between sculpture and writing, engaging with feminist new materialist concerns, exploring language as a liminal site through which to practice material attention and translate the sensorial and enmeshed encounters of body and matter.
Theo recently completed her masters in Art Writing from Glasgow School of Art and is currently working towards an exhibition of new work to be shown in Glasgow and in Co. Clare in Spring/Summer 2024. She has recently been award an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland to develop her sculptural/research practice. Currently her praxis engages with the idea of aftermatter, residues of matter in the aftermath of action, matter which embodies and evidences the wake of its own action, inquiring into our human intra-relation to the generation of matter. Moments which explore attunement to physicalisations of time, and human tendencies towards the generation of matter, both the incidental and intentional, encountering a disappearing lake amidst other material state changes of matter. This body of practice holds space for material encounters, for the exploration of memories and material attentions towards sites, matter, and labours of making. Through auto-fictional re-weavings her written work focuses on materially aware memories and how these inform a process of learning and building a language to mediate the world. Her practice moves from writing, to casting, to paper-making, photographs, video, sculptural durational material work, utilising all of these elements to create installations, exhibitions, publications.
To find out more about her postgraduate research please follow this link.