The RDS Visual Art Awards are set to return in 2024, showcasing the best of visual art graduates in Ireland.

With a prize fund of over €40,000, the RDS Visual Art Awards provide a curated exhibition opportunity for emerging visual artists. The 2024 exhibition will take place at the RHA Gallery from November 22 to January 18.

Among the talented artists included in this year’s exhibition are queer creators Stell De Burca, Cahal O’Connell and Ava Lowry, who spoke to GCN about their work and what it means to be part of this exhibition.

Stell De Burca
Stell De Burca is a trans, non-binary artist who uses traditional oil painting alongside comic book/storyboarding elements to follow a trans character. Through their art, they share an intimate and personal encounter of their navigation through normal everyday tasks that become complicated by their inability to conform to conventional gender roles.

“My art focuses on the more overlooked and subtle aspects of the trans experience,” they said to GCN. “The details that are woven into everyday life, more specifically, as featured in this series, the process of getting ready in the morning.”

What they want to achieve through their art is “to normalise the trans experience and make it a more approachable topic of conversation for people by taking them through my everyday experience.”

They continued saying, “By making my art about my trans experience I let people in on that part of my life, which meant that I could be myself at college, because everyone was right there with me watching my work unfold in the studio. It gave me the courage to come out to all my lecturers who were so unbelievably supportive and encouraging”

Speaking about what it means for them to be part of the 2024 RDS Awards exhibition, the artist said: “I was overjoyed that not only was my art well received, but that it was given such an amazing and prestigious opportunity to be seen and shared with more people.”

“A part of my life that I had once kept hidden from other people was suddenly being fully embraced and celebrated,” they added. “What did it mean to me? It meant the absolute world.”

Cahal O’Connell or Miss Mary Jane
Born in Derry, Cahal O’Connell is a visual artist, musician and cabaret performer whose art explores the intersection of identity, gender, sexuality and visual iconography.

He explained, “My art focus’ on utilising my drag alias, Miss Mary Jane, as a living artistic vessel, through which to carry out my performance work, which is often captured and immortalised through secondary lens based media.”

Reflecting on his art, he said: “​​I started my career as a musician and drag artist when I was 16 years old, playing tiny cabaret shows in a little jazz bar in Derry, where I’m from. Had anyone told me back then that after the struggles, both creative and personal throughout the years, that such an art form would propel me to a level of opportunity such as this is one – it’s been one the most validating experiences I’ve had as a working visual and musical artist.”

Speaking about work he submitted for the 2024 RDS Awards, he recalled being “intrigued by the mystique and glamorous, public facing facade of the Playboy Empire, beginning with exploring its role within the sexual revolution of the 1960s.”

The artist then created the pieces for the exhibition “by transplanting the iconic silhouette of the Playboy Bunny into the contemporary Northern Irish culture of 2023. Over the development of the project this theme began to sink in and became a lot more personally entwined as I crafted this new ‘Bunny Girl’ alter ego, inspiring me to align my musical practice with the project and pushing into further production and development.”

Ava Lowry
Ava Lowry is a visual artist who works with combined media, focusing primarily on watercolour and oil paint on canvas. Through her work, Ava explores themes related to the human body, intimacy and physicality within relationships and the self, and the interplay between the corporeal body and the concept of ‘home’, creating an overarching sense of intimacy.

“My work is inspired by the physicality of human bodies and skin, and mainly focuses on expressing nakedness and intimacy. Queerness is definitely a large element in my practice,” the artist explained. “I paint queer female-centric naked pieces that both aim to work within and against the traditional nude genre and ideas of conventional viewership and the male gaze, while employing traditional methods of painting.”

“The works meditate on moments of sweetness and queer eroticism combined. I want to approach same-sex relationships and interactions in a way that project a sense of normality,” she added.

Speaking about being part of the exhibition, she said: “It means so much to be involved in the RDS Visual Art Awards. As a young female
artist, it’s such an amazing opportunity to get shortlisted and to exhibit in the RHA.”

Reflecting on the work she submitted for the awards, she said: “I want to put an emphasis on the women in these pieces being active and central to the narrative of the works, creating a space for female expression and exploration. Using cropping and more obscured points of view, I hope
to challenge the way that nudes are traditionally consumed. I like to think of the canvas and wood as conduits for skin, as materials that absorb and warp with memory and experience evoking imagery of bodily fluids and stains.”

For more information on the 2024 RDS Visual Art Awards, visit the website here.