Isabel Nolan

Isabel Nolan has a wide-ranging artistic practice encompassing sculptures, paintings, textile creations, photographs, writing, and works on paper.

Biography of Isabel Nolan

Isabel Nolan was born in 1974 in Dublin, Ireland. In 1995, she earned a BA in Fine Art & History of Art from the National College of Art & Design in Dublin. Additionally, she completed an MA in Visual Arts Practices from IADT Dún Laoghaire in Dublin in 2006.

Nolan's work has been extensively exhibited in solo presentations, including "I keep dreaming that I’m a fictional character" at Proposition Gallery in Belfast (1998); "This time I promise to be more careful" at Kerlin Gallery in Dublin, Ireland (2007); "A hole into the future" at The Model in Sligo, Ireland (2011); "A Thing Is Mostly Space" at Launch Pad New York in the USA (2015); "Curling up with reality" at Grazer Kunstverein in Graz, Austria (2017); "Spaced Out" at Kerlin Gallery in Dublin, Ireland (2021); and "flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict" at Void in Derry, Northern Ireland (2022), among others.

Isabel Nolan has also displayed her artworks in group exhibitions, which include "Drawing Biennial 2017," The Drawing Room, London, UK (2017); "An Act of Hospitality Can Only Be Poetic," Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland (2018); "Double M, Double X," Kerlin Gallery, Ireland (2020); "Ghosts from the Recent Past," Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2021); "Odysseys," Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland (2022), and numerous others.

Her works have found their place in esteemed collections worldwide, including JP Morgan; Dublin Airport Authority (DAA); Dundalk Urban District Council; Bloomberg, London; Arts Council of Ireland; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Tate Collection, London; and various private collections in Europe and the USA.

 In late 2020,  Launchpad and Kerlin Gallery released 'Curling up with Reality,' a compilation that united a decade of Nolan's artistic endeavors, encompassing notable exhibitions and featuring 20 of the artist's written pieces.

Isabel Nolan's Art Style

Isabel Nolan has a broad artistic practice that spans sculptures, paintings, textile creations, photographs, writing, and works on paper. Her range of subject matter is equally extensive, including cosmological phenomena, religious reliquaries, Greco-Roman sculptures, and figures from literature and history. This exploration also delves into the behaviors of both humans and animals.

These diverse artistic investigations are propelled by rigorous research, but the ultimate outcome remains consistently deeply personal and subjective. Delving into the "intimacy of materiality," Nolan's work spans a spectrum from the architectural—steel sculptures that either frame or impede our trajectory—to small, handmade clay objects, hand-tufted wool rugs adorned with captivating cosmic imagery, and drawings and paintings employing modest gouache or colored pencils.

Together, they share a simultaneous sense of enchantment and apprehension toward the world surrounding us. This amalgamation embodies humanity's dual emotions—its apprehension of mortality and profound longing for connection, alongside its remarkable accomplishments in the realms of art and intellect. Fueled by a recognition of "the calamity, the weirdness, horror, brevity and wonder of existing alongside billions of other preoccupied humans," her creations embody these significant questions: how the world's chaos is transformed into beauty or infused with significance through human endeavors.