Masterclass Series

Coming from an island country on the fringes of Europe, Irish artists face the challenge of being isolated from European and international art worlds. Masterclass Series offered a significant professional development opportunity and enabled emerging and mid-career Irish artists to build international networks. It created an environment of learning and exchange for our community of studio artists and brought world artists to a public audience in Dublin.

Artists Mark Titchner, Katrina Palmer, Mike Nelson, Simon Starling and Ciara Phillips were nominated by TBG+S studio artists as a leading world artists with highly ambitious and creative practices.

About the Artists

Mark Titchner

Mark Titchner works with various media including digital print, wall drawings, video, sculpture and installation. His practice explores systems of belief, both secular and spiritual, often focusing on the marginalised, discredited or forgotten ideologies and objects we place our faith in. By the use of impersonal language of the public realm, ranging from the corporate mission statements to the maxims of revolutionary socialism, his work exhorts the viewer to believe in it.

In 2006 Mark was nominated for the Turner prize and his work was showcased in the Venice Biennale at the Ukraine Pavilion. He is represented by the Vilma Gold Gallery, London.

Katrina Palmer

Katrina Palmer’s work proposes sculpture as a language-based activity. Sculpture’s association with bodily presence on the one hand, and death or memorial on the other, is articulated in live readings, installed audio recordings and printed texts. Fictions are narrated by multiple overlaid voices with found objects and fabricated scenarios, accompanied by strategically employed melodramatic soundtracks.

Katrina Palmer lives and works in London. In 2013 Katrina was one of the selected artists to win Open, a competition ran by BBC Radio 4 and Artangel. Katrina is represented by MOT International Gallery, London.

Mike Nelson

Mike Nelson’s work centres on the transformation of narrative structure to spatial structure, and on the objects placed within them, immersing the viewer and agitating their perception of these environments. The narratives employed by the artist are not teleological, but multi-layered, and often fractured to the extent that they could be described as a semblance of ‘atmospheres’, put together to give a sense of meaning.

Mike Nelson lives and works in London. In 2011 Mike represented Britain in the Venice Biennale. In 2001 and 2011 he was nominated for the Turner Prize. Mike is represented by 303 Gallery, New York, Galleria Franco Noero, Turin, Matt’s Gallery, London and neugerriemschneider, Berlin.

Simon Starling

British artist Simon Starling intertwines an assortment of materials and found objects in his installations, sculptures, films, and photographs, which are backed by extensive study and labour. Starling delves into universal and specific issues, including the relationship between man and nature, the history of modern art, the life and work of famous artists such as Henry Moore and Constantin Brancusi, and the human drive to explore and impose order on the world. His projects are layered with references to multiple sources.

Simon Starling was the recipient of the 2005 Turner Prize. Recent solo exhibitions include The Liminal Trio plays the Golden Door, Casey Kaplan, New York (2016) and institutions such as The Japan Society, New York (2016); The Common Guild, Glasgow (2016); Rennie Collection, Vancouver (2016); Nottingham Contemporary, England (2016); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2016); Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City (2015); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Quebec (2015), and Tate Britain, London (2013).

Ciara Phillips

Glasgow based Canadian artist Ciara Phillips works mainly in printmaking. Her approach is expansive and experimental with an interest in both the physical processes of printing techniques and the capacity to explore and develop ideas through print. Working with multifaceted techniques from screen prints and textiles to photos and wall paintings, Phillips, printmaking process are underpinned by an interest in political and social activism. Often working collaboratively, such concerns are mirrored in her working method and exhibition strategies - transforming the gallery into a workshop and involving other artists, designers and local community groups in the making of the work.

Nominated for the Turner prize in 2014, Phillips is the founder of the artist collective Poster Club. Recent solo exhibitions include Yours and Mine is Ours, Benaki Museum, Athens (2017) and Comrade Objects, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Canada (2016). Her participation in group exhibitions includes British Art Show 8 (2015 – 2016) and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2014).