Alice Maher, Derek McDonald & Richard Gorman receive Honorary Fellow Awards at Conferring

An Honorary Fellow of IADT is someone who has an outstanding record of achievement in scholarship or practice, or who has contributed to public service related to the mission and vision of IADT.

Alice Maher has been awarded the title of Honorary Fellow at IADT in recognition of the significant contribution she has made to contemporary artistic practice nationally and internationally.

Alice’s artistic achievements are extraordinary. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1987, elected to Aosdána in 1996, and is an Academician of the Royal Hibernian Academy. Her work has been shown at the National Gallery of Ireland, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Ecole dex Beaux Arts in Rouen, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Science Museum and the Royal College of Art in London, Tate Britain, and the EU Headquarters in Brussels in 1996, to coincide with Ireland’s EU Presidency.

At IADT we encourage our students to be brave, to explore, and to test the limits of media and form. Being embedded in creative practice, emerging from cross-pollinations between multiple media and multiple collaborators, and always underpinned by rigorous research. Alice’s work is deeply related to our ethos, mission, and vision for the creative arts at IADT.

Derek McDonald has been conferred the title of Honorary Fellow of IADT in recognition of his advocacy and work as a creative and innovative entrepreneur, businessman, and mentor for students and graduates in IADT and his commitment to life-long learning.

An IADT Entrepreneurship graduate, Derek is someone who availed of an IADT Springboard programme to experience the educational opportunity which was not available to him in his early life. Derek’s first interaction with IADT began in 2011 when he completed a Special Purpose Award in Enterprise Development. This experience ignited an interest in further studies at IADT and led to Derek’s graduation with a Bachelor of Business in 2015. He also completed a postgraduate Certificate in Sports Psychology at IADT.

As a mature learner and an avid sports fan, Derek sees the value and opportunities of Higher Education from a broad perspective, recognising that student success happens both inside and outside the classroom and placing great value on how extra-curricular activities enhance and influence student development.

Consistent with this outlook, Derek established and oversaw the IADT Football Programme. He coached the IADT Football Team from September 2015 to March 2022. This involved training the team on Monday afternoons and coaching and managing the team for matches on most Wednesday afternoons, a considerable personal time commitment.

At IADT, we recognise and promote the value of embracing a broad range of interests and being genuinely multidisciplinary. Derek demonstrates a commitment to this in the range of activities and engagements he is responsible for. Derek is a proud alumni of IADT and has been a distinguished Ambassador for our institution.

Richard Gorman has been awarded the title of Honorary Fellow of IADT in recognition of his stellar career, influence and work as a painter, printmaker and sculptor.

After studying at Trinity College Richard spent his twenties in the family business before dedicating his life to Art. He began attending art classes in his thirties and became a full-time student at Dún Laoghaire school of Art and Design in 1976.  Richard has described the atmosphere at the school under the guidance of Trevor Scott, as open and progressive.

He creates Art that is composed of simple geometrical shapes, such as circles and squares, and the combination of a few colours – and he may repaint these colours over and over again until he is satisfied between the interplay between shape and colour.

He remains hugely prolific and was recently the subject of a major solo exhibition, Living through Paint(ing), at The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. Recent solo exhibitions include Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (2020); Chigasaki Museum, Japan (2019); Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland (2017); Castletown House, Co. Kildare, Ireland (2016).

Richard’s work is represented in the collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; Josef and Anni Albers Foundation; Koriyama City Museum of Art, Japan; Centre of Contemporary Graphic Art, Fukishima, Japan and New York Public Library. Richard was proudly elected a member of Aosdána in 1997, and is a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy since 2005.

IADT thanks Richard for his contributions to the canon of Irish Visual Art, his influence on a generations of artists, and IADT graduates and congratulate him on joining the prestigious company of Honorary Fellows of IADT.