Róisín O’Sullivan is a Cork-based visual artist working primarily in painting, expanded through drawing, printmaking, wood-burning and wood-carving techniques. Her practice begins with direct experience in nature and evolves into abstraction through intuitive processes and experimental mark-making in the studio. At the heart of her practice is a desire to understand how we see, remember and emotionally register the natural world.
Drawing inspiration from landscape, she explores themes of surface, time, light, gesture and repetition. Her paintings and carvings are intuitive and layered, responding both emotionally and intellectually to the fragility of nature as an abstracted subject. She works with a wide range of materials, including shop-bought, reclaimed and found wood, alongside various types of paper. The grain, knots and edges of these surfaces guide the work, as painted gestures respond to the material’s inherent language. Through burning and carving, she introduces a physicality and tension, creating a dialogue between surface and mark, spontaneity and control. In recent years, her work has increased in scale, allowing for more expansive gestures and a deeper engagement with the rhythms and presence of each piece. Recurring motifs such as circular “tree eye” forms, alongside references to the sun and moon, reflect her interest in organic cycles and the idea that, while we look to nature for meaning, nature also looks back at us.
Róisín O’Sullivan applied for a Golden Fleece Award to realise a new body of large-scale painted and carved works, alongside emerging sculptural forms made from gathered wood. This next phase will explore themes of transformation, seasonal change and cyclical structures drawn from nature and Irish mythology.
