Ellen Frances is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York City. Her practice merges painting, writing, and performance — with inspiration rooted in historical research and classical sensuality. She is a self-taught painter, designer and filmmaker.

Ellen’s work includes written librettos, movement monologues and silent poetry called “Poetry of Gesture”. In these works she expresses her poetry via pantomime before painted backdrops, in costumes of her own design.

As a dancer Ellen has worked under the direction of legendary NY City Ballet choreographer Todd Bolender, and with William Whitener at Kansas City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet company, contemporary choreographer Karole Armitage and experimental sound artist Jason Lescalleet. Ellen trained at Pacific Northwest Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, ABT and the HARID Conservatory. She is an active member of AGMA.

Ellen’s essays and criticism have been published in ArtNet, The Brooklyn Rail, The Art Newspaper and WhiteHot Contemporary Art Magazine. For more information, visit www.ellenfrances.com

In 2019, Aduantas was founded as a multidisciplinary performance group with a focus on immersive storytelling through acrobatics, aerial, contemporary circus and dance with outside-the-box staging and audience engagement. Their 2020 multi-award winning short film, ‘To The Waters and The Wild’ was filmed in Wicklow as an adaption of a 2019 live performance at the Convention Centre Dublin.

Inspired by shared histories, space and a place to make unique locations become characters, Aduantas has a particular interest in accessibility for both audiences and artists, which has stemmed from members of their group working with children and adults of varying additional needs, social circus projects worldwide, and personal experiences of disabilities and injuries. A core element of their drive behind creating Aduantas was to provide opportunities to those who are passionate about performance, not exclusively professionals. They believe everyone who is driven to practice, create and perform should have the chance to do so.

At Killruddery, Aduantas’ residence is mostly based at the Sylvan Theatre where on-going training, practice and immersion in this heritage horticutural landscape was the inspiration for their most recent show, which was performed in our gardens in August 2022.

John Jobson, artist and close relative to the current Earl of Meath, is a painter and sculptor who works in many mediums and exhibits in Ireland and abroad. As a young man John worked as a stockman on Killruddery's farm in the 1970s and 1980s, and John’s artwork covers a broad spectrum from representational landscape to more abstract and figurative art forms. In recognising John as both a witness of this time gone by, we invited him to develop the overall concept and drawing of a large commemorative mural for our Horse Yard, which he painted in collaboration with the talented mural and set artist, Alan Lambert.

Alan Lambert studied fine art in Ireland in the 1980s. After nearly 20 years painting murals internationally (in China, Russia, the Middle East and America), he chose to focus on working in the film and television industry in Ireland, providing artwork for such productions as The Vikings, Game of Thrones Tours and The Last Duel.

Having supported the opening of Killruddery Farm Market by painting Oscar (the last horse to be housed in the yards), John and Alan set about this large project in Autumn 2021, the result of this collaboration – the vast mural now adorning the walls of The Grain Store.

In 2018 Marty and Taryn packed what they could, sold the rest and departed Seattle, USA for the great unknown. With their three children (Matilda, Francis, and Viggo) in tow, they boarded a one-way flight to Paris and began their grand, global adventure. Three years and more than fifteen countries later they are sharing their story and connecting other curious families through their creative brand, Quartier Collective.

In October 2020 Marty and Taryn joined us here at Killruddery for a short but wonderful week. They quickly became part of our community, and when they flew off for Morocco we started talking about how to bring them back for a longer visit. We invited them to be our artists in residence, and were happy to welcome them back in July 2021 where they stayed with us until mid-October.

Having spent lockdown composing a number of acapella songs around the themes of mythology, folklore, landscape, loss and the otherworld, Branwen Kavanagh invited two incredible folk singers, Anna Mieke Bishop and Zoe Basha, to collaborate on arranging the songs for an upcoming album for three voices. The three spent the summer of 2018 travelling across Eastern Europe together collecting folk songs and developed an intricate and harmonious dynamic which has led them to working together on this project. They have also been very involved in Dublin’s burgeoning traditional singing scene over the past number of years and have a great awareness of various singing techniques and styles, as well as pursuing folk music careers as individuals. They were very excited to see what emerged from their time collaborating and hoped to have completed arrangements for ten songs after their two weeks in residence and produce an album in the following months.

Joanna Kidney was born in Dublin and currently lives in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Through drawing, painting and installation, her work explores ideas of temporality and the interrelationship between all living matter. Seeking to make some sense of life, it reflects on how complex and vulnerable our lives are within the infinite universe. At Killruddery, Joanna explored these themes for an upcoming show Pendulum using encaustic paint – an ancient, immediate and tactile painting process using molten pigmented beeswax. Solo Exhibitions include: List Gallery, Swarthmore College, Philadelphia (upcoming), The LAB, Dublin (upcoming), Wexford Arts Centre (2018), West Cork Arts Centre, Uillinn (2018), Galway Arts Centre (2016), Mermaid Arts Centre, Co. Wicklow (2015), RHA Atrium, Dublin (2013) and The Drawing Project, Co. Dublin (2012). She has exhibited widely in group shows in Ireland, France, Germany and the USA. 

Joseph Young is an artist living and working in Brighton (UK) and Berlin. A specialist in binaural recording techniques, his sound diptychThe Missing Paintings is held in the permanent collection of Towner Art Gallery (UK) and a 10-year retrospective of his Neo Futurist Collective artist group, Make Futurism Great Again, was held in 2018. Joseph’s residency project takes the archives, architecture and grounds of Killruddery as its starting point to uncover unheard and forgotten stories of Anglo-Irish social histories. He seeks to creatively inhabit the historic Brabazon family archives, identifying key texts, sounds and images to produce a parallel, contemporary sonic archive using 3D audio techniques. This is part of a practice based PHD with SMARTlab at UCD, supervised by Professor Lizbeth Goodman and funded and supported by the Irish Research Council and Killruddery Arts. 

Róisín Pierce is an Irish textile designer who graduated from the National College of Art and Design (Dublin, Ireland) with a BA Hons in Textile Design. Led by experimental textiles and sculptural forms, Róisín combines innovative 3D fabric manipulation and traditional textile techniques. Her S/S18 collection explored textiles, construction and sculptural silhouettes for a contemporary audience.

Performers and composers, Nico Brown and Martin Brunsden, returned to Killruddery to launch their new album Owl Music – five years in the making. Following their album for families ‘Out Of The Door Of The Ark’, this was a circular nocturne of original instrumental lullaby with interludes of sea, played on double bass, piano, harp, concertina, guitar, shruti and sansula.

Irish singer and actress Lisa Lambe is a former member of the famous ensemble Celtic Woman. Her debut solo album, Hiding Away, was recorded in Nashville and received much acclaim worldwide. Lisa collaborated with Martin Brunsden and Fiachna Ó Braonáin at Killruddery to explore and record songs for a new album. Martin has worked with holy men and women, artists, musicians, poets, sculptors and theatre companies – as well as a magnificent herd of children. Fiachna has worked with African gospel singers, Moroccan tribesmen, Texan swingers and Irish balladeers as well as performing with his Irish rock group, Hothouse Flowers, for over thirty years. 

Gavin Beattie is a Wicklow based graphic designer, illustrator and screenprint artist. He is also co-founder of Tiny Little Horse, a small, design and poster art collective producing limited edition, hand-printed posters and prints. Gavin Beattie designed and printed three limited edition colour, silkscreen prints of Killruddery using eco-friendly, water-based inks on 250gsm, recycled paper.

Yeoung A Yeo was born in Busan, South Korea. Having painted since she was a toddler and received formal art education as a child, Yeoung A Yeo graduated from university in 1998 with a degree in fine art painting. After graduation, Yeoung A Yeo’s professional career in South Korea included teaching art for over 10 years, and time spent as a designer in an advertising agency. With each experience, she grew as a painter and learned to love her skill even more.

Yeoung A Yeo has been living and working in Dublin since 2010, and she has found Ireland hugely inspirational. Speaking about her experience living in Ireland, she says “Ireland has as many hours without sunlight as it does, with intense contrasts of light. However, the light I thought was absent was always there in the shade. Finding the light in the shadows always inspires me.”

We look forward to having Yeoung A Yeo’s art work on display in our Pizza Shed, from Thursday, 14th September until Sunday, 29th October. For more details visit our Event Programme.