This exhibition by STAC's 2025 Artist in Residence, Zoe Velthuysen, explores how migration and place shape identity, drawing from the artist's own experience of moving from Australia to Tipperary.

Motivated by the internal and often quiet ways in which place interacts with identity, Velthuysen's work engages with how surroundings, systems, and social dynamics leave their mark on a person over time, asking: what happens when the contours of a new place meet the inner workings of a migrant? This exhibition interrogates the experience of adapting to new surroundings, questioning what it means to belong, to move, and to carry a sense of home within one's body.

‍

Zoe Velthuysen is an Irish Australian artist working primarily in drawing and sculpture. Her practice examines migration as a lived, bodily experience, focusing on how identity shifts through movement, adaptation, and place. Grounded in personal research and observation, her work considers how attachments to place are formed and how they change over time.

The artist's material-led process uses repetition, accumulation, and subtle variation to reflect instability and gradual change. Drawing forms the foundation of her practice, while sculptural work extends these investigations into three-dimensional space. Her work often engages with thresholds, transitional states, and the tension between permanence and impermanence.

Velthuysen is a recent graduate of the BA (Hons) in Fine Art at MTU Crawford College of Art and Design. She has exhibited in group shows in Ireland and has received several graduate awards, including: the Lavit Gallery Graduate Group Exhibition Award, Cork City Council's Arts Office Purchase Prize, and the MTU Student Engagement Exhibition Award.

‍

STAC's Tipperary Artist in Residence Award is supported by the Tipperary Arts Office and the Arts Council of Ireland.

‍

Image Details: Zoe Velthuysen, Untitled, Pastel pencil on pastelmat card, 35cm x 35cm.