STAC and Clonmel Junction Arts Festival are delighted to announce the selected artists of our 'Encounters with Failure' open call.
Shirani Bolle, Sean Farrell, Beth Fox, Noel Hensey, Niamh Hughes and Clare Scott.
'Encounters with Failure' will run from 5th July - 2nd August 2025 and is in partnership with Clonmel Junction Arts Festival
Shirani Bolle
Shirani Bolle is a self-taught artist originally from the south of England, now based in Limerick City, Ireland. Her practice explores identity politics, race, and trauma, often drawing on personal narratives and place.
In 2024, she was awarded the Limerick City Individual Arts Bursary in recognition of her emerging voice in the visual arts. Her work has recently been exhibited at Ormston House in Limerick and Outset Gallery in Galway. Looking ahead, she will present her first solo exhibition at Laneway Gallery in Cork in April 2026.
Sean Farrell
Implementing an expanded painting practice, Sean Farrell’s work examines themes such as colour, human psychology, the object, and memory. His paintings are totally non- representational. A central aspect of Sean’s practice is how colour can affect the perception of the viewer.
Sean’s abstract paintings often take the form of wooden constructions. These “Constructs” are a departure from the flat painted surface and arose through an effort to answer one key question: How can colour materially reach towards the viewer? The Constructs are realised as several distinct series’, for example his Off-cut series which employs discarded pieces of wood and other found objects combined together, focusing on a minimal aesthetic. Using several such approaches, Sean aims to explore different formal aspects of painting.
In 2023, Sean completed a study exchange at HDK Valand, Gothenburg, Sweden. In June 2024, he graduated with a First in Fine Art at IADT Dun Laoghaire. In June 2024, he was long-listed for the RDS Visual Art Awards. Sean’s work is included in the OPW State Art Collection and the DLR County Council Collection.
Beth Fox
Beth Fox is a multimedia artist working primarily with moving image and installation. A graduate of Central Saint Martins (MA Fine Art, 2011) and Limerick School of Art
& Design (BA Sculpture, 2010), she has exhibited widely across the UK, Ireland, and internationally. Beth is influenced by the tradition of Irish oral storytelling and uses humour as a device to explore difficult or taboo subjects. Her current research explores the impact of digital technology on everyday life through the lens of an elder Millennial.
Beth has presented solo exhibitions at Platform Arts (Belfast) and Studio 10 at East Quay (Somerset). Recent group shows include: The London Open at the Whitechapel Gallery (UK), Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival (Scotland), Soft Focus (South Korea) and the London Short Film Festival (UK). In 2023 she was a recipient of an Agility Award from the Irish Arts Council and a Culture Ireland Travel Grant to present her work at Michigan State University (USA). In 2025 her work will be shown at the Science Gallery Bangalore. Beth’s films BUM SHOWER & 12 LEMONS are included in the Irish Artists Film Index.
Noel Hensey
Noel Hensey (b. Dublin) currently lives and works in Co.Kildare, Ireland. He is a graduate ofboth the PG Dip and MA Fine Art courses from Chelsea College of Arts, London. He is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist working primarily in; photography, sculpture, sound, video and installation.His art practice is concerned with philosophical exploration, balanced with some humour.
His selected group exhibitions include: The O.P.W’s ‘Connections’, Touringvarious venues in Ireland and N.Ireland, 2025; ‘Members Show’, OUTPOST’,Norwich, ‘Funny Dread’,SET, London, 2024; ‘MATTERS OF TABLE’, (peripheriesPOST CourseExhibition), Gorey School of Art, Co.Wexford, 2023; ‘192ndRHA Annual Exhibition’, RHA Gallery, Dublin,2022, ‘Winter Open’, Rua Red, Dublin, 2018; ‘Claremorris OpenExhibition’, Co. Mayo, 2015 and ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, SiteGallery and S1 Artspace, Sheffield and the I.C.A., London, 2011.
Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘Openness’, 36 Gallery,Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2023; 'Verloren Und Gefunden', SomoS ArtHouse, Berlin, 2021 and ‘So You’re Going To Die’, Eight Gallery, Dublin,2017.
His awards include; The Visual Artists Ireland (VAI) ‘Experiment!Award’, 2023; The Arts Council of Ireland’s ‘Agility Award’, 2023,2022 and ‘Visual Arts Bursary Award’,2020; Kildare Co. Co. Arts Service ‘EmergingVisual Artist Solo Exhibition Bursary Award’, 2011.
Niamh Hughes
Niamh Hughes is a self-producing, undisciplined artist based between Meath and Cork City. Her practice involves painting, costume, and experimental moving image. Hughes received a first-class honours BA in Applied Materials: Textile Art and Artefact from NCAD, with a special commendation for her thesis. Niamh has worked in various creative roles alongside her practice, such as set and prop fabrication, project and workshop facilitation, illustration and costume design.
‘I am a self-producing, undisciplined artist based in Cork City. My practice involves painting, costume, and experimental moving image. My artworks operate like surreal
diary entries. They’re created impulsively, responding to fleeting and indistinct thoughts. They help me to understand how and why I take up space in this world. I channel horror, absurdism, and humour while immersing the viewer into a phantasmagoric expression of my fears, anxieties, and passions. ’
Clare Scott
Clare Scott is a Waterford based artist and writer whose work ranges from painting to large scale temporary installation. Most recently she has created site specific work for the Mdina Cathedral Biennale in Malta (2023), at Somos in Berlin (2024) and for Split at Wrexham (2025). She has been selected for the Lido Stores Open and The Beep Painting Biennal and currently has paintings in the Split touring show of Turps artists which will finish in London in June 2025. She is a member of the Turps Correspondence Course 2024/2025 and will be joining the Mass Sculpture Course for 2025/2026 with the support of Artlinks. She has received a number of Arts Council and Culture Ireland Awards.
One of her concerns is to bring the energy of the creative process into the gallery space in order to reveal the decision-making path, with all its hesitations, wrong turns and so-called failures. She often works within time constraints to undercut the desire to create a finished product. For Encounters with Failure, she will be creating a piece or pieces within a defined area in the space, the workspace being the core of her contribution.
