Shakefest Artists in Focus –
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Shakefest would like to celebrate its 18th year of art and culture by running a 6th art showcase of 2 County Offaly gifted animation projection Artists – Caroline Conway and Finn Nichol.
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Caroline Conway, renowned artist from Birr, Co. Offaly will be creating an illuminating animation projection show on the front of Charleville Castle to conclude the night’s festivities, focusing on the history, community and ethos of Charleville Castle Heritage Trust. Visit www.carolinefconway.com for all of Caroline’s past animation projection works, most recently ‘Behind These Walls’ as part of ‘In the Open/Faoin Spéir’ programme 2021-22 on Tullamore Jail. Castle Illumination show will begin at 10:30pm.
Caroline Conway is a visual artist and arts educator with a collaborative, multi-disciplinary practice that includes moving image, sound and performance, to create immersive experiences pulling together strands from different times to create a dialogue between eras. Caroline gained a First Class Honours and Post Graduate Diploma from Edinburgh College of Art and has lived and worked in the Irish Midlands for the past 20 years. She works extensively in Arts Education, as an Arts Council Creative Associate and on the design team of the Teacher Artist Partnership, currently developing an International strand through Erasmus+ funding.
In Birr, Co. Offaly, Caroline has been a driving force in raising the profile of the arts and engaging the community, both in her work on the steering committee for the development of Birr Courthouse as an artists collective, and in developing the visual arts strand of Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival as a significantly focused arts strand of collaborative, multi-disciplinary projects in non- traditional art spaces and the public realm .
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Finn Nichol
Originally from Birr, Co. Offaly will be showcasing 25 minutes of his most recent works on the wall of the Charleville Castle Ballroom from 9:30pm. Past works will be included from projects such as some of his graduate work, Wolftrap Mountain as part of Birr Vintage Week and Arts Festival 2021, works from Creative Ireland – A Song of Resilience, Youth Arts Commission, The Loop Festival in Barcelona, and Soundscapes of Nature at the Birr Music Festival 2022 to name a few. Finn also won the prestigious RDS Taylor award in late 2021 for Most Promising Arts Graduate which you can view HERE. You can learn more about Finn’s work HERE.
Finn has graduated with a BA Hons, Sculpture & Combined Media with LSAD 2017– 2020, First Class Honours and is currently studying for his MFA at Ulster University, Belfast.
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