Ailbhe Ní Bhriain

Originally from Clare, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain has a BA in Fine Art from Crawford College of Art, Cork (2000), an MFA from the Royal College of Art, London (2004) and a practice-based PhD from Kingston University, London (2008). She is represented by Domobaal Gallery, London and her practice combines film, photography and installation to conjure images of dreamlike hybridity.

Created with CGI and collage, her work reimagines archetypal sites of cultural, religious or scientific significance through the lens of a destabilised future. Viewers are invited into a world where diverse histories and systems of belief exist in a shared state of aftermath that is defined by a sense of quiet estrangement. Each work is an amalgam of multiple technical elements – live action location footage, computer generated 3D-modelled imagery, green screen video, stop motion animation and gaming technology – brought together to form slow, durational films that are increasingly cinematic in scope. Photography and installation play an increasingly important role in the work, extending the central motifs of the film work into new material and pictorial connections.

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain applied for a Golden Fleece Award to invest in the material aspect of her practice, in particular Jacquard tapestry and bronze casting. The Jacquard loom is based on the use of binary code, and she plans to explore the backwards transition from the virtual to the tactile by working with Flanders Tapestries in Belgium. She will also explore bronze casting at Bronze Art Foundry, Dublin, casting hybrid objects from found, crafted and AI generated 3D-printed forms.