The RHA is delighted to announce Ciaran Murphy as the recipient of the RHA Tony O’Malley Studio Residency, 2012. The residency, administered by the RHA, is awarded on an annual basis to an artist who wishes to work primarily in the medium of paint.

During his lifetime Tony O’Malley was the recipient of subsidised studios and accommodation in St. Ives, Cornwall. Administered by the Arts Council of Great Britain it offered the artist time to concentrate on creating work. Jane O’Malley has never forgotten the privilege of those decades for herself and Tony. A number of years ago she acquired Tony’s family home in Callan Co. Kilkenny. Jane, working with her architect, set about renovating the building into a first class facility for an artist to live and work in and in association with the Royal Hibernian Academy, Jane O’Malley now wishes to offer this home/studio to an artist on an annual basis.

Ciaran Murphy’s work takes the form of small and large-scale paintings on stretched paper and canvas using both watercolour and oil paints. The habitual collecting of imagery forms an important part of Murphy’s practice. Images spanning vastly different eras taken from art history, natural history, scientific enquiries and nature documentary stills, serve as a starting point for his work. Murphy’s practice is predominantly an enquiry into what it means to perceive the world through the human eye. The finished paintings depict objects treated in isolation, tiny snippets of time and ambiguous contexts or sites that seem to hold out the vague anticipation of an event. Since the first solo presentation of Murphy’s paintings in Dublin, 2005, Murphy’s work has achieved considerable international critical success, with solo exhibitions in Amsterdam, London, Chicago and Philadelphia. In 2010 he had a solo show of both old and new work in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin. Upcoming exhibitions include Apertures and Anxieties in the RHA Gallery, which will feature new work produced out of a recent engagement with the medical departments in Trinity College, Dublin.

For further information on the RHA Tony O’Malley Studio Residency contact Fernando Sanchez, Academy Coordinator, phone 01 6612558, email fernando@rhagallery.ie.