BA [Hons] Art graduate Cian Handschuh wins at RDS Visual Art Awards 2023
IADT are delighted to congratulate BA [Hons] Art graduate Cian Handschuh, winner of the RDS Members’ Art Fund Award at The RDS Visual Arts Awards which took place at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Thursday 7th December.
Cian Handschuh is a visual artist currently practicing in Dublin, Ireland. His work often uses sculptural installation to explore questions of dwelling, nationality and heritage. He is interested in exploring how the built environment (housing, infrastructure, architecture) contributes to social structures. His work is heavily process-based and commonly uses self-harvested and foraged wild material, such as clay, sand and water reeds. He has exhibited in group shows such as Diplomakiállítások at Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem (2022) and In the Making: Bread at Pallas Projects (2023).
BA [Hons] Art graduate Saoirse McGarry is also exhibiting as part of the 2023 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition until 3rd March 2024.
Saoirse McGarry is a Dublin-based artist working with narrative. Her practise encompasses writing, character work, photography, performance, collaboration with musicians and storytelling. Working with analogue photography she draws on themes of identity, love, womanhood and selfhood. She uses characters to explore the complexities of the individual lived experience by pushing and pulling on her own personality, exaggerating certain aspects of herself and making art in different identities. McGarry has exhibited in Pallas for IADT In the Making – Bread (2023), Uks Teist exhibition in Tallinn, Estonia (2022), Healing in Tallinn (2022) and EKA BF021 Photography Exhibition.
2023 RDS Visual Art Awards
Mary Cremin, Eamonn Maxwell, Rayne Booth, Sarah McAuliffe and Aisling Prior were the team of independent curators appointed by the RDS to conduct the initial longlisting process for the 2023 RDS Visual Art Awards. They visited BA & MA degree shows in Irish art colleges and longlisted 109 artists. Longlisted artists were then invited to complete an application form.
These applications were reviewed by our judging panel: Mary McCarthy, Eithne Jordan, Christina Kennedy, Gary Coyle and Irish artist Elaine Hoey. The judging panel then shortlisted 26 artists.
From the shortlist, the judging panel selected 15 exhibiting artists for the 2023 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition. The show will be curated by Irish artist Elaine Hoey, and will be exhibited in the West Wing Galleries at IMMA from December 8 2023 – March 3 2024. Five prize winners will be awarded the €35,000 prize fund.
The RDS Visual Art Awards offers the most comprehensive assessments of graduate work in Ireland undertaken on a thirty-two-county basis. The competitive process is transparent, highly regarded and harnesses the expertise of some of the best visual arts professionals working in Ireland. Inclusion in the exhibition has a proven positive impact on the accelerated career progression of young artists.