Conor O' Grady

Conor O' Grady (born 1987) is an Irish-based writer, photographer, conceptual and installation artist working in several media. Having recently returned from Brighton, East Sussex, he now divides his time between Dublin and Mayo.

Career

Born in Castlebar, County Mayo, Ireland on July 14, 1987. He attended the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), studying Fine Art within the education faculty, he completed his artistic studies at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) in 2013. His work has been exhibited widely in Ireland, Britain and Australia including his debut solo exhibition Green Carnations which was shown at the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar this August–September 2015. His work has been published in a number of literary and artistic journals online in Europe and America. He has recently completed the summer residency at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT)

Techniques and Art Practices

Conor O' Grady's art practice concerns several aspects of political, social and visual culture. His work is most notable for a focus on an expression of otherness, isolation or alienation expressed by minority groups and sub-cultures within Irish society. His work can be said to fall under the following thematic points of contemporary visual reference: Social sculpture, The Flaneur, Psychogeography, The Gift economy, Relational Aesthetics, Dialogical Practices, Collaboration, and instances of inter-connectivity between individuals. His work is heavily influenced by the writings of Bourriard, Derrida, Foucault and Beuys as well as many other visual and cultural influences.

Work

Conor O’Grady’ work is based on an interdisciplinary approach to art making, referencing several aspects of societal, cultural and artistic modes of production and consumption.

Within O’ Grady’s practice, there is an emphasis on the multiple, participation, large-scale-floor installations and socially and politically motivated visual art practices.

Heavily influenced by collaboration, dialogue and inter-connectivity especially in relation to sub-groups and minorities within society. He is interested in the visual language of the scientific and technological structures which aid communication and the dissemination of ideas.

Social and digital connectivity and the discourse between discrimination and classification of minority groups play an important role in his work.

Film

The moving image elements of O' Grady' practice portray the effect technology, in particular the internet have had on the way we produce, consume and communicate ideas. A documentation of our almost total reliance on technological systems, what this means for society and specifically how this modernity affects minority groups within society, in terms of interaction, classification and discrimination.

His moving image works follow the notion that our lives are lived through lenses and screens, and that there is no distinction between those screens. From mobile phone, computer to windscreen there is no distinction between how we view our reality. However, in his mind we have yet to create a system in which we can adequately portray real-time changes in societal shifts in attitudes, towards particular issues.

O' Grady' moving image work frequently utilises experimental editing processes, appropriated imagery and found footage gleamed from file sharing websites, his work is typified by themes of political and social engagement, frequently documenting experiences of isolation, otherness and alienation within the context of sub cultures and minority groups within society.

Photography

O' Grady uses photography to document and archive street-art and interventionist actions which he performs in everyday, public spaces. His imagery either archives the performative action of the intervention or ignores the action completely, and focuses on the spaces in which each intervention has taken place. His photography like all of his work is heavily influenced by Michel Foucault and other post-modern and post-structuralist philosophies.

One of his most notable works which uses photography in this way, is a series of images and accompanying narrative prose entitled These Are My People 2012 and These Are My People 2012 in which Conor relays an incident involving an itinerant man on Dublin' Liffey Board walk,using spray painted bottle tops with a letter on each one, placed into the board walk' steel bolts, that when completed spelled out a specific phrase from the prose. The work also took the form of several interventions in which thousands of tiny, identical cast heads were placed in specific spaces and photographed.

His photographic works are typified by the multiple, pattern, structuralism and an examination into the minutia of everyday life, a life however which is outside of the relative norms of Irish society. From photographing objects and areas that have been left behind after criminal or antisocial behavior has taken place to documenting the public areas used by marginalized gay men to meet and interact.

One of his most recognizable images is I.R.A (N) one of a series of images in which he has altered pre-existing Irish republican graffiti to subvert the intention of the original author. Changing every example of I.R.A vandalism that he could find to either spell Iraq or Iran. O' Grady uses photography and exploits the accessibility of mobile phone technology to document in the quickest possible instance, the issues which affect Irish contemporary culture. There is in his mind a cost however to this over accessibility of imagery and technology.

Installations

Conor O' Grady' installation works are characterized by found objects, floor based media and follow a site and context specific approach to installation. His floor based installations focus on the multiple, pattern and a re-presentation of a previous dialogical practice with a particular group or minority. The installations created by O' Grady generally concern a material, substance or process which expresses a particular experience of otherness, especially in terms of minority groups and wider society. His works use the visual language of journalism, criminality, forensics and cultural signifiers.

His most noteworthy installation to date is a work entitled Standing in the way of Control (Intrinsically Ordered) 2015 also known as Standing in the way of Control (Ephememroptra). which featured in his most recent solo exhibition Green Carnations. The installation consisted of hundreds of gold foil inserts from cigarette packets, found in public areas frequented by gay men and used for illicit sexual encounters. Each piece of gold foil is manipulated into a triangular self-supporting form and arranged into an intricate and complex design based on orthodox and catholic religious iconography and imagery.

Another installation which mirrors this process his floor based installation which he exhibited for his degree show from DIT in 2013. Entitled Criminal Assets, it explored the proliferation of criminal behavior within wider Irish society. The piece included hundreds of hollowed cigarettes which had been discarded after drug use had taken place and collected by Conor over a series of six years. Each object was placed on the gallery floor in a large grid, there was no adhesive utilized and the hollowed cigarettes were allowed to move around the gallery space with interaction or through the window which was left ajar in the space.

The large floor piece was flanked by several empty pieces of plastic bag which had been used to transport heroin as well as a moving image work entitled FIGHT 2013 and a diagramatical drawing inspired by Mark Lombardi's drawings entitled Criminal Assets 2012 or Overground/Underground 2012 which depicts the names and interconnections of men who have been murdered as a result of their interaction and involvement with Dublin' criminal gangs. Beginning with Martin 'the General' Cahill in 1994 this drawing is in an ever state of flux and as a result of the amounts of deaths which take place each year.

Writings

O' Grady is a prolific short story writer and essayist. His prose work follows non-linear narratives and experimental social commentary. He is heavily influenced by philosophy, sociology and anthropology and in an interdisciplinary approach to visual and written narratives. His work has been published in a number of online and literary journals and his work is characterised by Cut-up experiments, stream of conscious and intense re-working and editing of each narrative.

Selected Publications:

Drunkard versus Behan, Duende, Literary Art Magazine, Summer Issue (2015)

These Are my People, Unbecoming Queer Dialogues, Murray State University (2015)

Stripling in Loose Attire, Critical Bastards, Creative Art Criticism, Issue 11 (2014)

Conversations with Conversations, Essay published in conjunction with In Conversation: photography From the Bank of America Collection show at IMMA, (2012)

Selected Exhibitions

• Window to Eden, Solo Exhibition, Dublin, (2016 TBA)
• 1916 Centenary Exhibition - Kathleen Lynn; Insider on the outside, Group Exhibition, (2016 TBA)
• Off The Wall, Group Exhibition, GMIT Campus, Catlebar, County Mayo (December 2015)
• Mayo God Help Us!, Group exhibition, Claremorris Gallery, County Mayo (October 2015)
• Green Carnations, Solo Exhibition, Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, County Mayo (2015)
• Forevernow, Melbourne, Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia (2015)
• MONOFOMA Festival, Tasmania, Australia (2015)
• Synaesthesia II Down Town, Nottinghill, London (2013)
• WET, Avenue festival, Waterford (2013)
• Group Exhibition, TRACES, the Atrium, Templebar Gallery and Studios, Dublin 2 (2011)
• Space Exhibition, Electric Picture House, Congleton, Cheshire (2011)
• Mayo Artist’ Show, Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar (2010)
• Mayo Artist’ Show, Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar (2008)
• Mayo Artist’ Show, Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar (2006).

External links

• http://conorogradyfineart.blogspot.ie/
• http://inthisnation.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://www.dit.ie/news/archive2012/conversationsphotographyfromthebankofamericacollection/
• http://www.duendeliterary.org/conor-ogrady
• https://criticalbastards.wordpress.com/
• Mayo News interview
• Ian Wieczorek Review

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