Elva Mulchrone

Elva Mulchrone is an Irish artist currently based between Dublin and London. She has a first class BA in Fine Art (Painting) from the National College of Art and Design, (2016) Ireland, and a primary degree in Economics, Business and Social Science from Trinity College Dublin.

She received an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2021. Currently visual artist in residence at Dublin City University 2022/23 she has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar Finalist for 2022/23. She has exhibited internationally and is currently showing work at the 192nd Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts Annual Exhibition in Dublin.

Mulchrone presented her solo show Res Ipsa Loquitur with Gibbons & Nicholas (November 2020-online), a solo show Building Blocks at the Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London, (January 2020), and her debut solo show Irrational Exuberance with Eight Gallery, Dublin (March 2018).

Selected recent group exhibitions include The 192nd RHA Annual Exhibition in Dublin, The Highlanes Gallery Open Submission in Drogheda, The Future is Clean and Round (2 person show) at Gallery 126 Galway, The Distance Between (3 person show) at the Hockney Gallery London, Gibbons & Nicholas at Art on Paper NYC, Arrival at Municipal DLR Lexicon Dublin, Context Art Miami, Cairde Visual at The Model Sligo and The Rua Red Winter Open in Dublin.

She has been awarded grants and bursaries including The Mainie Jellet travel Bursary, The Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Award, The Emerging Artist Bursary from DLR County Council and is included in Infrastructure-Fingals Public Art Programme 2017-2021. She was awarded an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland in June 2021.

Her work is in the OPW (Irish State Collection) and Trinity College Dublin collections and corporate and private collections.

Conceptually driven, my practice seeks to represent truth and move with the medium, be it paint, installation or video, and speak to a new room in the house. Work examines the role of information and abstraction in contextualising and re-contextualising an understanding of who and where we are, social science concerns, repeat pattern and of aesthetics.

I am continually inspired by contemporary experience, academic research and discourse and studio experimentation. Current work spans research covering inequality within the social contexts of everyday experiences as well as perspectives of people as they navigate multiple systems of inequality and the reality of social immobility. Relating and responding to these issues is a key element of my work.

I present layers of information, and through paint, colour, movement and video question notions of representation and critical observation. To me, colour is subliminal and sublime. The use of or restraint in its use presents its own narrative.

I seek to operate within a time-lag between argument and interpretation, between the objective and the subjective so that another sort of meaning, and another sort of understanding can arise.

Cacophony – Oil on linen, 150 x 150 cm

Cacophony (detail) – Oil on linen, 150 x 150 cm

As We Are – Oil and silkscreen on linen, 150 x 150 cm

As It Has Been – Oil and silkscreen on linen, 150 x 150cm

As It Could Be – Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150cm

It Is What It Is – Installation, nails and wood, W150 x H40 x D70cm

Boston To Lambeth (Part I) – Video commentary on Lambeth, the most anti-Brexit borough in the UK, photographing different locations and engaging with schoolchildren at Kingswood School, Gipsy Hill Federation to hear their perspective on their environment.

Boston To Lambeth (Part II) – Visual examination of the Boston borough which voted overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit. No school wished to partake in the project. The video is accompanied by music written and recorded by Irish composer Éna Brennan.

The Walls Within – A performance piece depicting a same-symmetry game I created which questions notions of balance in society. The equation to describe the game was written by Dr. Tara Mitchell of TCD and cinematography by Basil Al-Rawi. Music by Éna Brennan (The Mountains of Mourne by Percy French).

Since December 2021 I have focussed my research on Equality Studies and particularly since March 2022 on the work of Professor Kathleen Lynch at UCD and Professor Maeve O’Brien at DCU. I have created paintings, oil on linen and acrylic on canvas, and installation work inspired by this research.

I have been influenced by Maeve O'Brien's mapping of capitals in educational care and the work of Bourdieu.

O’Brien, M. (2009). The impact of economic, social, cultural and emotional capital on mothers’ love and care work in education. In Affective Equality (pp. 158-179). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

In Collaboration with:

Basil Al-Rawi

Cinematographer

Éna Brennan

Composer

Medium:

Painting

Absinthe I & II – Diptych, Oil and silkscreen on linen, 150 x 150cm (x2)

Economical Truths – Oil and silkscreen on linen, 114 x 190cm

Res Ipsa Loquitur is a body of work created since April 2021. Work was inspired and informed by economic research at LSE and research on anti biotics of last resort at Imperial College London.

Medium:

Painting

Data Painting Research

Immobility Show and Tell – Installation, Acrylic and pen on Saunders Waterford 638gm, 32 x 41cm (x9)

In Red – Inkjet on Hahnemuhle 308gsm 70 cm x 100 cm

In Lime – Inkjet on Hahnemuhle 308gsm 70 cm x 100 cm

In Hot Pink – Inkjet on Hahnemuhle 308gsm 70 cm x 100 cm

Wheel of Fortune – Silkscreen on fabriano 70 cm x 100 cm

Eton Mess diptych – Acrylic, ink and pen on wood, 34 x 37 cm (x 2)

Prediction – Oil acrylic and silk screen on canvas, 90 x 130 cm

Building Blocks is a body of work shown at the Blyth Gallery, Imperial College London in January 2020. Work was developed in the RCA and inspired and informed by economic research at LSE and anti biotic research at Imperial College, London.

I am grateful to professor Stephen Machin of LSE and Dr. Andrew Edwards of Imperial College London for their generosity.

Medium:

Painting, Print and Drawing

Data Painting Research

About Time For A Vigil – Installation, Maldon alarm clocks, wood, candles, dimensions variable Charles II, thanks for the memories and other works on Fabriano, 70cm x 100cm (x12)

Eton Mess Installation – Silkscreen on fabriano, 70 x 50cm (x3) Acrylic on fabriano, 30 x 40cm (x5) Other mixed items, dimensions variable

Hot Zones II – Acrylic, ink, pen and silkscreen on Fabriano, 70 x 100 cm

Pink Progression – Acrylic on linen 46 x 46 cm

The mobility of immobility – Reflection on social immobility patterns.

Departures – A commentary on different boroughs' behaviour in the Brexit vote, and other economic factors.

Body of work developed in the RCA and informed by research at LSE, analysing the UK’s emotional, political and social scientific relationship with itself and ‘outsiders’. Shown in part in 126Gallery, Galway, Ireland and the Hockney Gallery, London.

I am grateful to professor Stephen Machin of LSE for his time and generosity.

Medium:

Painting, drawing and print

Data Drawing Installation Painting

Elva Mulchrone

In Collaboration with:

Medium:

Medium:

Medium:

Medium:

The Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City University

Social

About

Royal College of Art