Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre Artist in Residence Julielou Bacon

Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre Artist in Residence
Julielou Bacon
Almanac 2026 ce
5 June to 4 August 2026

Midway reflection

St Mona’s Holy Well, Sherkin Island

The other day, while out on Sherkin Island talking with a local, I found myself
describing my residency at Uillinn (5th June-4th August) as being like a migratory
bird that is spending a season in a different hospitable setting from the climate of
their usual life. Birds were on my mind since a conversation earlier that day during a
walk with an islander on their neighbour’s land – where there is a Mass rock – had
raised the topic of the corncrake. I listened to my hosts’ recollection of the birds’
arrival, nesting and calls. Later, I looked up this species – unfamiliar to me – on the
Internet and read that they had been regular “summer visitors, breeding in Ireland
from April to September and migrating to Africa for the winter.”

A field trip to Drombeg stone circle organised by the Skibbereen & District Historical Society

This visit to Sherkin is one of a regular series of fieldwork trips and meetings that I
have undertaken at sites in and around Skibbereen and West Cork since setting up
in my studio on the 2nd floor of Uillinn. They are joined by conversations in the
studio, including on my open days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays: you are very
welcome to come by. Sites visited and events in which I have participated range
from: a cycle out along the Baltimore Rd to Lough Hyne (in Midsummer brightlight); a
talk organised by the Skibbereen Historical Society at Drombeg stone circle (in the
sea fog); a walk along the shores of Roaringwater Bay with residents (in sunblaze
with a gentle south-westerly breeze); a bus trip out to attend the Fastnet Maritime
and Folk Festival in Ballydehob (in thickhumid pub air); joining a songwriting and
community band workshop on Heir Island (in seafogshine).

Plotting field work in the studio

At these places, I have arranged to meet, and encountered, people who have
connections with this area, whether through their livelihood, family, work, retirement,
interests or research. In conversations we have discussed their reflections on
climates, sensings of time, and the almanac, which is the umbrella idea of my
residency. I completed my first project reflecting on the contemporary relevance of
this age-old publication in 2024. Then I presented works exploring climates and time
in Edinburgh, my current home, and the Outer Hebrides, where I had also
undertaken a residency. I have a similar approach this time around, working in the
studio and in the field, I have a set of tools, methods and materials for my art
research that include working with: watercolour, pencil and charcoal, sound samples,
drawing, video clips, and assemblage of (found, made or bought) objects.

Working beehives near Skibbereen

Almanacs are bound to specific places and contain key information about them. I
guess in musical terms (I also sing and play guitar) you’d say that I am ‘riffing’ on the
idea of the almanac, not attempting to be systematic, but sounding, fathoming, or
intuiting place, guided by the publication’s basic framework which addresses
seasons, land, sea, climate and time. People I have spoken with have experiences
of time and climate shaped by trades, the arts, tourism and heritage, beekeeping,
birdwatching, the sea and other waterways. I feel thankful for this time and
experience generously shared and look forward to more exchanges to come in the
second part of my residency.

A former boundary wall in eroded coastline around Roaringwater Bay

This creative approach to the almanac – working with the anecdotal, soundings, and
observations – is not so distant from the traditional almanac, which often held a
curious mix of…'information'. I pause over the term, because ‘information’ often
means ‘data’ today. Tides are usual parts of an almanac, and while I can buy a
standalone tide table from Fields Supervalu (as I did, thanks to a helpful suggestion)
and it can tell me a lot of useful information, what does it mean to me in this form
alone? I am from South Shields – we are called sand dancers – and tides are very
real to me, they live in my memories, but not ones woven with this place. When
information connects with, or is embedded in, the climate and time of stories,
sounds, smells and images of lived experiences – direct or passed on to us –
different kinds of understanding and relationships emerge.

The public payphone, Heir Island, disconnected c. 2009

I am interested in the diverse ways climate and time are embodied in people, and
other species, and the different durations of this, from the rooted to the settled to the
newly arrived. I am also drawn to the stuff of place, such as rocks! What happens in
the mix, when samplings, fragments, piecings, and tracings, of time and climate
captured in different ways come together? At this point, I am looking around my
studio at the collection of things here and wondering how I might arrange them into
stepping stones or twine them together. As part of Skibbereen Arts Festival (date
tbc), I will be holding an Open Studio where I will arrange residency materials as a
work-in-progress installation.

Singing with the Ballydehob Community Band

With my process so far, I am leaning into the betwixt-and-betweenness of
information-storytelling-observation associated with the almanac. I am turning over
the threshold between the incidental and the significant, signal and noise. I am
exploring how our bodies are weather stations of sorts, barometers of climate and
time. Through materials and methods, sensing the rhythm of place here, I am
considering what counts as knowledge, and of how available, layered, open, hidden,
enduring, and ethereal it is.
Julielou Bacon
07/07/2026

https://westcorkartscentre.com/event/julielou-bacon-2026/

This residency is supported by the Crespo Foundation.

The Crespo Foundation is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and was set up by the photographer, psychologist and philanthropist Ulrike Crespo (1950–2019). The foundation carries out operational projects in the fields of art, education and social affairs. The Crespo Foundation works closely with Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre for its own residency programme "ArtNature/NatureArt" in Glenkeen Garden, West Cork.

https://www.crespo-foundation.de/en/about/the-foundation

Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre acknowledges the financial support of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Crespo Foundation in making this residency possible.

Members & Friends Exhibition 2026: Meet the Artist - Claire O' Mahony

 

Introduction

Claire O' Mahony submitted a stand-out oil painting titled "The Birthday" featuring the 40th US President Ronald Reagan with "250" on the frame below him. The artist and painting are surprisingly, deeply intertwined.

Interview with Claire O' Mahony

1. What inspired your submission for this year's "Members and Friends" Exhibition, and were there any particular people, places, experiences or events that influenced it?

My father's first anniversary was December 2025. I painted Ronald Reagan as he told me as my birthday is February 7 and Reagan's the 6th that among his favorite people share the February Birthdays. An old friend of his had a February birthday as well.

2. What led you to choose the medium used for your work? How did it help you express your ideas?

As a little girl my father always thought oil was more Regal so I painted a Regal Reagan.  

3. What do you hope viewers take away from your work? Whether emotionally, intellectually or otherwise.

They can sense a bond as well as a distinction. It's not just diplomats that are admired. Reagan had courage for his convictions. I am also independent and perhaps each month does gift us with special traits.

4. Did your original vision for this piece change during its creation? If so, how and why?

I added 250 on the frame as The United States will be 250 on the 4th of July. Meant to be. My father's birthday is also the last day of the exhibition, July 16.

5. Does Ronald Reagan have any special significance in your submission compared to other presidents throughout US history?

 I was born in New York and it was during his 2 terms that my father became more engrossed in politics. My father worked extra hard. The boss in one of his jobs in America said "give Jerry O'Mahoney the overtime or give it to 6 Americans". My father said he saw the difference in his pay check under Reagan's office. Reagan put working class people at the foreground. This also gave an incentive for the people not working to work.

Members & Friends Exhibition 2026: Meet the Artist - Lynda O' Donoghue

 

Introduction

Lynda O' Donoghue has submitted a watercolour piece titled "Fastnet Lighthouse" after one of West Cork's most iconic maritime landmarks. She has provided further insight into her methodology and personal connection with the lighthouse.

Interview with Lynda O' Donoghue

1. What inspired your submission for this year's "Members and Friends" Exhibition, and were there any particular people, places, experiences or events that influenced it?

This watercolour was inspired by a boat trip I took around the Fastnet Lighthouse last year. Being able to see it from every angle and taking photographs of it up close gave me a completely new appreciation of this iconic landmark. The experience stayed with me long after the trip, and I wanted to capture not only the lighthouse itself but also the sense of isolation, strength and permanence it conveys. As a West Cork native, I am continually inspired by our coastline and the stories connected to it. The Fastest felt like a natural subject for my first submission to the Members and Friends Exhibition.

2. What led you to choose the medium used for your work? How did it help you express your ideas?

Watercolour was my preferred medium for this painting because of its ability to create atmosphere and subtle transitions of light. Watercolour keeps the sky and sea soft while allowing the physical presence  of the lighthouse to stand strong.  

3. What do you hope viewers take away from your work? Whether emotionally, intellectually or otherwise.

I hope viewers are drawn into the quiet drama of the scene and take a moment to reflect on the resilience of the lighthouse & its place in our maritime heritage. On a personal level, I hope the painting evokes a sense of calm and wonderful, reminding people of the beauty and power of the natural world that surrounds us here in West Cork.

4. Did your original vision for this piece change during its creation? If so, how and why?

Yes, it evolved as the painting developed, I intended to create an accurate representation based on my photographs. However, as I worked I became interested in conveying atmosphere and mood trying to capture the Fastnet in the weather conditions.

5. Is your work based on any particular location in West Cork?

 The Fastnet Lighthouse is one of Ireland’s most recognisable landmarks. For me, seeing it from the sea during the boat trip brought its scale and significance to life in a way photographs alone never could. It represents resilience, guidance and endurance against the elements. I find these qualities inspiring, and painting it was my way of celebrating a structure that means so much to the history and identity of this region.

Members & Friends Exhibition 2026: Meet the Artist - Micheál O' Connell

 

Introduction

Micheál O' Connell, also known by his online alias "Mocksim", has submitted a very avant-garde piece for this year's exhibition. This is a submission which encompasses the gallery unlike every other: "Nothing".

Interview with Micheál O' Connell

1. What inspired your submission for this year's "Members and Friends" Exhibition, and were there any particular people, places, experiences or events that influenced it?

There was no theme this year. If there had been, that would have been a factor. But there wasn't. I'm not that interested in everyday presumptions about what constitutes art. For the most part the word conjures up the expectation of rectangular things hung on walls, these being unlikely pictures based on some virtual reality often, and making use of a limited, proscribed, set of materials, and they are often framed.

Ordinary ideas about the importance of craft - once again usually taken to mean a preordained and very limited set of activities - can irritate too. These are hardly radical gestures to be making here. Think of Victor Burgen's famous words from back in the 1970s about painting as 'the anachronistic daubing of woven fabrics with coloured mud' and something more about so called sculpture, come to mind.

We are well into the 21st century now and highly industrialised technological society, factory production, began emerging a few hundred years ago. Long before AI, artists recognised that particular kinds of skills had been undermined, but replaced by other ways of engaging with an ever-changing situation. Selection, and decision making are very important. Picking something out. And maybe 'thinking' is important to defend. I'm fond of Hannah Arendt.

2. What led you to choose the medium used for your work? How did it help you express your ideas?

As a child, my friend Frank O'Keefe and I were committed to doing things the difficult way, rather than the easy way. For example we would walk along the rock by Myrtleville and Fountainstown but choose the more challenging route up steep parts and so on. No following the line of least resistance can be valuable in life, and politically, I later realised.

Anyway for the purposes here I want to do something more difficult than simply submit another rectangle. I wanted to avoid the suggestion that visual is important - though visual is unavoidable too. Wheeling Duchamp in here again, who long ago dismissed this fixation on the retinal, as if artists were people with bigger better eyes or something.

I'll admit that more could have been done to hone and perfect this piece. There are some flaws in how I described the work, some inconsistencies, and given that the description is so important to the work - some would argue all that it is - that's an issue.

  

3. What do you hope viewers take away from your work? Whether emotionally, intellectually or otherwise.

I have no hopes for viewers to be honest. More precisely it depends on who they are. They are not viewers anyway because there is, arguably, nothing to view. It's quite a boring and unoriginal work in one sense. I wait to see. It tickled me but now I see some flaws.

I'd give it 65% out of 100 if I were marking it. Not bad, a good B grade. Perhaps viewers could assess the works?

4. Did your original vision for this piece change during its creation? If so, how and why?

Yes, because the volume of the holding space is always different. The piece therefore has a different volume and mass here. I modified the description slightly too I think. The original work was shown 6 years ago in fact. Here's a documentary pic with description: https://www.flickr.com/photos/68898173@N05/49399396547/in/album-72157712711008063/

5. What do you wish people asked you more about your work?

 I don't really have any wishes. It might vary though. Re one piece in a show there in 2022, called Car Parked, an upside-down Toyota Yaris, a passer by asked, 'C'meeer, it that car or is it art?' The question took me by surprise and I quickly answered, 'It's both'. They were visibly delighted with the response, and the idea that something could be two things at once.

Members & Friends Exhibition 2026: Meet the Artist - Roger Horgan

Introduction

Roger Horgan is another artist featured for this years exhibition, with a surreal acrylic on canvas painting titled "West Cork Imagined #1". Here, Roger gives us a deep insight into his methodology.

Interview with Roger Horgan

1. What inspired your submission for this year's "Members and Friends" Exhibition, and were there any particular people, places, experiences or events that influenced it?

The landscape of West Cork is a huge inspiration for me and it has grown more so since I took up kayaking.  The view of the land from the sea in a boat which is so low in the water gives a different perspective which energizes my brain.

2. What led you to choose the medium used for your work? How did it help you express your ideas?

Years of working in a commercial environment means that I’m equally adept with expressing my vision digitally.  This means that I can develop my sketches and colour palettes digitally, before translating these onto canvas using acrylics.  The speed with which acrylics dry means I can work at speed and any changes can be made at the right time.  

3. What do you hope viewers take away from your work? Whether emotionally, intellectually or otherwise.

I’m hoping to share some of the wonder, joy and good fortune I feel to live in such an inspiring area.  Subject matter is everything.

4. Did your original vision for this piece change during its creation? If so, how and why?

The fact that my work is not strictly based on specific references means I have the freedom to make the image look and feel the way I want and this gives me the flexibility to change aspects of the image as I work.  In the current painting, the overall composition didn’t change much from the concept stage but the colours evolved a lot while I worked on the canvas.

5. Is your work based on any particular location in West Cork?

Generally my work is not based on any one place, more created from my memories of places and atmospheres that affected or stayed with me from being there.  This submission was initially inspired by an old boat in Clonakilty harbour, though the rest of the painting is clearly somewhere else!

Members & Friends Exhibition 2026: Meet the Artist - Marie Bryan

 

Introduction

Marie Bryan is one of the many featured artists for this years exhibition, having submitted a fabricated metal sculpture titled "Draoi Buí Draoi Cróga Draoi Scéil: Solar Alien". During this interview, Marie shares deep insight into the process and philosophy behind it.

Interview with Marie Bryan

1. What inspired your submission for this year's "Members and Friends" Exhibition, and were there any particular people, places, experiences or events that influenced it?

I am always intrigued that there seems to be no alien life in other star systems, because no liquid water has been observed out there. I wanted to invent an alien who was decidedly fictional and also quite friendly, so I proposed a Solar Alien, beaming yellow. Draoi Buí Draoi Cróga Draoi Scéil: Solar Alien is both sunspark and sun God, and most omniscient. I have been doing space art projects, and loving the work. I really enjoyed exhibiting at MTU Blackrock Castle Observatory and at Spacefest 2025 last year. There is quite a buzz to meeting scientists, researchers and writers through this interdisciplinary pursuit.

2. What led you to choose the medium used for your work? How did it help you express your ideas?

This steel fabrication was an ATU Galway sculpture brief called Geometric Solids, where we were to learn about working with steel. I began by constructing a pentagonal dodecahedron with the help of the sculpture lecturer, Ger Leslie. Steel inspired the formidable. It inspired strength and strength of spirit.

Also, I have a background in painting, and I became fixated on finding a warm yellow. This took several sessions of spraying. I wanted my strong steel piece to have approachability.

3. What do you hope viewers take away from your work? Whether emotionally, intellectually or otherwise.

I was aiming for alien, and I guess this looks like something new to viewers. I would like to think that there is more for us, and I would like to inspire this hope in others. Life can be wearying, and we need positive surprises for reinvigoration and inspiration. 

I would like that viewers see the fun in the disarming yellow, spikey angular steel fabrication, a unique contradiction in terms. I would like it to put a positive yellow emoji on viewers' subconscious.

4. Did your original vision for this piece change during its creation? If so, how and why?

My original drawings were of a star with crooked starlight. The idea of bending time fascinates me.  My proposed piece, with twelve pentagonal bending spikes, was both ginormous and needing a lot of worktime. It was scaled back to this, with just one spike coming from the dodecahedron, and just the first part of that spike built solid. I was happy to pick up the slack, by including narrative with further potential, in ogham inscriptions, and by developing that narrative further in the film module of the course. Our film lecturer, Louise Manifold, emphasized story boarding. 

5. Is your sculpture thematically intertwined with your other works?

The resultant film, Meet Me on a Rock, is an intense two and a half minutes of new religion.  It tends to be either not noticed, or watched several times. Draoi Buí Draoi Cróga Draoi Scéil: Solar Alien gets to tell his story, and as he narrates, he compels the actress to do his bidding, to attain the party to end all parties: paradise with Armageddon. I edited sound to find a cute alien voice, which I found irresistible: you couldn’t but follow him!  Also in the film is another sculpture, a rocket filled with yellow balloons, which I am instructed to launch, west of Galway. With no engine in the rocket, my determined endeavors are laughable. Comic performance is a major part of my artistic expression.

Members & Friends Exhibition 2026

Cora Collins - "A Good Day Coming"

Exhibition: Past & Present

West Cork Arts Centre was founded in 1985 by a group of artists and community members, who held an exhibition in Skibbereen for the Welcome Home Festival. This exhibition has now become the 'Members and Friends Exhibition - a staple annual showcasing works, to showcase works from local artists in West Cork in all stages of their career. The exhibition houses a diverse range of works ranging from oil paints, charcoal, photography pieces to sculptures and much more. The exhibition aims to celebrate the achievements of our local artists and the importance of the arts in our region.

The exhibition provides an open platform for local talent to express their creative process to the general public. Whether you attend to buy a painting for your wall or admire the works on display, you will always find something awe-inspiring.

This year, the Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre will celebrate it's 42nd annual exhibition with a display of over 100 works from amatuer, student & professional artists. Two awards will also be handed out to two exhibiting artists. The first being the "Cnoc Buí Exhibition Award" which offers a solo exhibition opportunity at Cnoc Buí, Union Hall in 2027. The other is a "Sample-Studios Associate Membership" for 1 year. The latter of which provides support (e.g. professional facilities, training or mentorship, exhibition and residency opportunities) and sustains creative careers and practices in Cork.

Meeting the Artists

To celebrate 42 years of the "Members & Friends" Exhibition, I interviewed a diverse range of artists to uncover the methodology behind their submitted works. These interviews will be provided in upcoming posts here on the Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre blog.

Over the next week I will gradually release these interviews, which include the following artists: Marie Bryan, Roger Horgan, Micheál O' Connell, Lynda O' Donoghue, Claire O' Mahony and Ibrahim Kimotho.

I'm Brian Walsh, an artist from Schull with a background in animation and motion graphics. I work part-time at the Uillinn as I always had an interest in visual storytelling or using art as a means of self-expression.