Cavan Arts

Art Form: Visual Art

Laura O Connor

Image: Dull, Limp, Lifeless, 2010, 5 mins (looped), single channel video projection

Bio:

I am an artist and researcher based in Belfast. Currently undertaking a practice based PhD at the University of Ulster. My work focuses on the representation of women on screen specifically the parallels between gender performativity in online self-representation seen in the screens of the ‘digital everyday’ and in screen-based feminist art practice. In my work I re-perform certain stereotypes seen in media culture as a subversion of the image of ‘real women’. Questioning our understanding of what a woman is and should look like or how she should act. In contemporary society, social media plays a huge role in young women’s lives and I am interested in how self-produced images of femininity are played out in these online spaces. As an artist who deals in parody, mimicry and failure through performance to camera I am researching feminist art practices that use the internet as a space to present work, seeking to find the subversion or difference between these two performances. I recently exhibited in PS2, Belfast in a solo show titled: Simulations, Interfaces and Performativity, where I performed under the hyper real alter ego-‘SweetHeart’, combining makeover and exercise regimes with live and simulated online performance.

I have an MFA from the University of Ulster and a BA (hons) in Sculpture and Combined Media from Limerick School of Art & Design. I have received numerous awards such as SIAP funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (2011, 2013), the Tyrone Guthrie Bursary (2012) and the Tommy McLoughlin award (2010) from the Cavan Arts Office. Past exhibitions include, The Pensive Spectator at Trans Art Cavan 2013, A (brief) History of Looking for Culture Night Belfast 2012, In View at the Golden Thread 2010. I also have a 2-person show coming up in 2015 with Aine Philips at the Ballina Arts Centre, a solo exhibition at Queen Street Arts, Belfast and a joint exhibition with Emma Campbell and Clare Gallagher at the Remote Photo Festival in Letterkenny. I am a co-director and studio member of Array Studios Belfast.

www.lauraoconnorart.com

Laura O Connor