Close Enough features the work of our second year MFA students, within the Studio Art and Art & Ecology programmes.  From December 7-12, our Study Abroad Undergraduates will have their end of semester show, Loose Ends, alongside first year postgraduate Open Studios, in both the Gallery and Barn studios.

Aaron Asher (b. Las Vegas, 2000) is a queer transgender artist whose practice explores (dis)comfort, the queer, memory, and home through sculpture and installation. His work considers the intimate connection between people and their well worn clothing, as it is representative of the body, gender, and memory. His practice draws from his personal experiences to foster a relationship between the trans/queer communities and others.

Asher earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture with a minor in Art History from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2023. He is currently completing his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art at the Burren College of Art, a part of the University of Galway, Ireland. He has exhibited work at Mirage Bar in Manchester, Newtown Castle in County Clare, Sheppard Gallery in Reno, Nevada, and Las Vegas City Hall Grand Gallery, Nevada.

Carter Thompson is a Photographer and Woodworker born and based in Attleboro, Massachusetts in the United States. He earned his BFA in Photography with a Minor in Woodworking at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2022, and began his MFA in Studio Art at the Burren College of Art in 2023. Thompson works mainly in black and white film photography, printing his work in a traditional wet darkroom, as well as woodworking when he sees fit in a traditional dry woodshop. The subject of his work is based in personal memory and experience, recounting through writing and traditionally printed silver gelatin photographs.

David Manno is a Brooklyn-based visual artist known for his evocative explorations of existential philosophy, dissociation, and the human form. A graduate of Concordia University in Montreal with a BFA (2009), Manno has exhibited extensively across North America, with his latest shows including Flesh + Bone III at IA&A at Hillyer in Washington, D.C., Strange Figurations at the Limner Gallery in Hudson, NY, and his current duo exhibition Flesh and Sensations of the Baroque at the Laneway Gallery in Cork City (until Dec 9, 2024). His work has been featured in publications ArtAscent and Yo-NEWYORK!, and he received the Dick Blick Honorable Mention Award at the National Art League’s 89th Annual Juried Exhibition (2019). Manno’s practice delves into the intersections of abstraction and figuration, inviting viewers to confront the transient and tactile nature of existence.

Noelle Foden-Vencil’s (b. Portland, Oregon, 1996) work explores the relationship between humanity and its place within the natural world by engaging with community and place-specific materials found in abundance. Her work challenges the Western definition of what is ‘natural,’ by incorporating foraged materials like plastic waste into her practice. Her goal is to enchant viewers as to the merits of the materials she uses, and to offer tangible, alternative and sustainable ways of creating and living by employing accessible, traditional craft methods like sewing, drawing, potting, and cooking. Ultimately, her work is both a personal and public invitation to reconsider humanity’s existence as part of the environment, which she hopes will encourage the development of more ecologically-considered practices.

Noelle earned her BS in Biology and Studio Art in New York from Skidmore College in 2018, and has worked for several community studios in San Francisco, California as a teacher and coordinator. She is currently based in Western Ireland, where she is an MFA candidate in the Art and Ecology program at the Burren College of Art.

Róisín is a landscape-based artist with a BA in Fine Art getting an MFA in Art and Ecology. Their work is focused on responding to and documenting culture, ancestry and the natural world. They are researching heritage and sustainability through mapping and collecting from the landscape as well as collecting data from their own family and heritage. They work with mixed media, found objects, natural pigments, photography and video to create installations that explore the connections in nature and systems.

Sara K Dunn is a multimedia artist who utilizes a wide range of mediums, from detailed intaglio prints to delicate porcelain forms, to convey her wonder of the interconnectedness of the mycological world and the ecosystems that they inhabit. Her primary focus during her time here is on the inherent Queerness that fungi and mycelium present, which is conveyed in her art through modifying traditional practices, essentially queering her processes. She is pursuing an MFA in Art and Ecology at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. She earned her BFA in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, in 2017. 

The unsustainability of Western society, supermodernity, and its subsequent inflicted traumas on the neurodiverse mind are the main focuses of multimedia installation artist Symphony Delayne. As an MFA Art and Ecology candidate in Ireland, Symphony’s research centers on building visual narratives that harken to their own lived experiences as an Autistic and ADHD individual and the relationships people have with the industrialized, and Westernized world. An extensive fibers background and a BFA in Fibers from the University of Oregon (2023) have led Symphony to becoming a spinner and weaver of stories by creating immersive spaces that act as transportations to share perspectives. Their current installation, “Your Labs are Normal” is meant to highlight the comforts used as flimsy bandages against the horrors of hospitals, bright lights, and industrial noise.