Isabel Nolan

“The arc of almost every little thing I’ve proffered in public, in exhibitions or texts is quite similar. It goes as follows:

Life is often hard and without meaning in any grand, a priori sense. Art is a good way to find meaninglessness beautiful. Meaning must be invented. And those inventions must be contested and questioned, and never taken for granted.” - Isabel Nolan

Isabel Nolan’s work includes sculpture, textiles, paintings, drawings, photography and writing. Her work responds to the fundamental question of how humans bring the world into meaning. How we make, (through science, politics, agriculture, religion, etcetera), reality happen. Examining the knees of a 17th C sculpture, the status of a Neolithic artefact, or a solar storm in the 19th century, Isabel Nolan looks for the ways we can like, or even love, the difficult and complex human world we’ve made.

Curling up with Reality, 2020, is a monograph featuring select work and writing from 2011 to 2020, published by Launchpad, London; Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, in association with Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin.

Exhibitions include a two-person show (with Stephen McKenna), Boxes Art Museum, Shunde, China, 2019; and solos at Kunstverein Langenhagen, 2018; Grazer Kunstverein, 2017-18; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 2017; London Mithraeum/Bloomberg Space, 2017; Mercer Union, Toronto, 2016; Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2014. Isabel Nolan represented Ireland at the 2005 Venice Biennale in a group exhibition. Her work has featured in EVA International, Limerick; LIAF biennial, Norway; Artspace, Sydney; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Beijing Art Museum, and Glasgow International. Isabel Nolan is represented by Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.