ATU Art Catalogue 2025

left then right then left This exhibition presents the work of students undertaking the MA in Creative Practice at the School of Design and Creative Arts, Atlantic Technological University, Galway. left then right then left explores the collective experience of working in the arts and what emerges from the ongoing, unseen labour in the creative process. Through the practices of Rana Abushkhaidem, Luke Browne, Annette Colleran, Cecilia Daniels, Michael Elliott, Mike Elliott, Lucia Hrda, Siobhan McNutt, Aimee O’Brien O’Riordan, Katie Smeraldo and Joe Sweeney, we encounter work exploring the human experience which dwells in the spaces between presence, fragments, echoes and action.

We engage with gestures and objects that consider the loss of control, while constant mutual adjustments settle us in moments where we can appreciate the residual thrum of memory. Our need for connection is grounded through narratives of love and grief, while sound and salvaged materials mark ways of remembering what is already fading, or what is yet to come. By immersing ourselves in the journey and process, we establish relationships through methods of care, acknowledging how our decisions affect our surroundings and shadows.

These practices can continue to shift far beyond the exhibition period in cycles that merge and grow. After creating a trace of this time they will respond to the next step, left then right then left.

Curator’s Biography Kate McSharry is a Visual Artist and Independent Curator whose practice explores dynamics of pleasure and communality while considering surveillance, cognitive anthropology, architecture and time, art and care, and relearning through writing.

Kate’s practice has been supported by Galway City Council Arts Office, Galway Culture Company, Galway Arts Centre, Culture Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland since graduating with a First-Class Honours and the Academic Achievement Award in Contemporary Art from ATU Galway in 2021. She also currently works as Co-Director at 126 Artist-Run Gallery & Studios, Administrator at Artspace Studios, and Education Officer at TULCA Festival of Visual Arts.

left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

MA in

Creative Practice

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Doodles to heal pt.1, 2021, ink on paper, 21*30 cm

Rana Abushkhaidem MA in Creative Practice

Rana Abushkhaidem is a Palestinian director whose practice combines film, visual arts, archives, and anthropology. She holds a BA in Film Production from Dar Al-Kalima University. She has directed three short documentaries: Cinema Al Amal (2024), which is currently screening at international festivals; Wadi Foquin 2021–Deir Hanna 1981 (2021), which was screened as the opening film of the Festival Ciné-Palestine Paris 2023; and El-Halabiyeh (2021), which won the Audience Award at the Davis Feminist Film Festival 2023. Beyond filmmaking, she is involved in cultural and community-based initiatives.

She is a co-founder of the Palestinian Production Directory, produced audiovisual content for the Palestinian Museum (2022–2023), and contributes to the Oral History Project of the Cultural Symposium Club in Hebron. She is currently completing an MA in Creative Practice at the Atlantic Technological University in Galway, Ireland, where she continues to develop her storytelling skills through film, animation, and archival research.

In Doodles to Heal, Rana turns to drawing as a way to process her grief. Each repetitive line is a quiet release, a way to give form to anger, sadness, loss, and worry. Through this simple act, the noise calms down and the page becomes a space to breathe. These drawings are more than personal— they reflect the shared experiences of others. They are a mirror for anyone carrying their own grief. By exploring the different ways of grieving and healing, the work suggests that grief is not just an individual burden, but something that can be shared. Doodles to Heal is a conversation: between Rana and her feelings, between personal memory and collective history, and between viewers, who may find comfort in recognising their own struggles. It is an intimate reminder that, even if grief is isolating, healing is possible when it is shared.

Doodles to heal pt.2, 2025, Digital.

rana.abushkhaidem@gmail.com @rana.abushkhaidemm

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Spit Your Heart Out Logo Poster. Year: 2025, Dimensions: 152mm x 101mm, Created in Adobe Photoshop

Luke Browne MA in Creative Practice

Luke Browne is a digital artist and musician from Donegal. He graduated from ATU Letterkenny in 2024 with an honours degree in Animation. Having earned multiple award nominations for his student films, he brings that experience and momentum into this project, aiming to push the boundaries of his practice. Luke’s creativity is fuelled by a love of storytelling, be that through building animated worlds or composing music. His work is often characterised by witty, fast-paced narratives underpinned by intertextual themes.

Over the last year, Luke has focused on a project that would unite his two main creative disciplines (animation and music) into a single production. Supported by his academic research into transmedia and how narrative meaning can change across different mediums, this exploration of his practice has culminated in the production of an animated music video and original song entitled “”Spit Your Heart Out”.

Thematically, “Spit Your Heart Out” deals with an emotionally complex interaction between two people in a strained relationship. The song itself is full of tension and layered meaning, while the animation contrasts this by offering a more literal and comedic take on the same events, creating a tension between what the viewer hears and what they see.

Animation Still Render, Year: 2025, Dimensions: 152mm x 101mm, Created in Autodesk Maya/ Adobe Photoshop

www.linkedin.com/in/luke-browne-donegal www.artstation.com/lukebrowne3 lukebrowne135@outlook.com

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Someone, No-one, Anyone (2025). Detail view, metal and paper.

Annette Colleran MA in Creative Practice

Annette Colleran is a multidisciplinary artist based in Galway. Her work is grounded in research and personal enquiry. Informed by conversations and written accounts, her practice engages with the human experience, particularly shared histories, legacy and transformative life events. She delves into themes of loss, resilience and survival.

Through sculptural installations, Annette draws on digital media, sublimation printing, painting, textiles, found and fabricated objects to translate her research into threedimensional form that invites reflection, dialogue and conversation.

She studied at ATU Galway where she received a First-Class Honours degree in Contemporary Art, followed by an MA in Creative Practice. Annette also holds an MA in Adult Learning and Development (Hons) from the University of Galway where she developed her interest in transformative learning. Her work was selected for group exhibitions at 126 Artist-Run Gallery in Galway and as part of the Clifden Arts Trail. In 2025, she was awarded the Radius Artist Bursary to lead a multidisciplinary project in collaboration with art-makers from That’s Life in Galway. This project will be exhibited at the upcoming East Side Arts Festival later in the year.

Annette’s current work, inspired by published material and first-person accounts, explores lived experiences through the lens of childhood. Together, the elements offer an immersive space to reflect and engage with memory, vulnerability and resilience.

Someone, No-one, Anyone (2025) , Detail view, concrete and metal

contact@colleranart.ie www.instagram.com/annettecolleran colleranart.ie

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

2025, Cyanotype.

Cecilia Daniels MA in Creative Practice

Cecilia Daniels is a contemporary artist whose creative journey began at Atlantic Technological University (ATU) in 2020, where she enrolled as a mature student. In 2024, she earned an Honours Degree in Ceramics and Sculpture, and she has continued her academic and artistic development through a Master’s degree in Creative Practice at ATU. Specialising in three-dimensional work, Daniels also incorporates photography, traditional printmaking methods such as linocut, and cyanotype into her practice. Her process is rooted in material exploration, often blending clay, plaster, and wood with found objects and repurposed artworks. This experimental approach enables her to continually discover new perspectives and directions within her art. Her work is a powerful tool that often aims to elicit emotional responses, ranging from introspective to humorous, by drawing the viewer into immersive and narrative-driven experiences, fostering a sense of engagement and connection.

“As Above So Below”

2025, Print.

This installation lifts what is usually concealed and asks you to pause, to look more closely, and to imagine the ocean’s story. It is a story of beauty and resilience, but also of strain. The central concept is to render visible what is frequently overlooked, not necessarily out of deliberate ignorance but because the effects of marine pollution often occur out of sight and therefore, out of mind. The underwater environment conceals the accumulating consequences of corporate unaccountability and consumer consumption, making it easier for society to underestimate or dismiss the scale and urgency of the issue. The objective of the installation is not solely representational. It aims to cultivate empathy and awareness, prompting viewers to consider the broader implications of human impact on the natural world. While scientific data can inform, the emotional resonance of art can foster reflection, connection, and ultimately, action. Whether through initiating conversation, inspiring behavioural change or encouraging involvement in environmental initiatives, As Above So Below aspires to function as both a mirror of current conditions and an instigator for collective response. @ceciliadanielsartist

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Michael F. Elliott MA in Creative Practice

Michael Elliott is an emerging filmmaker whose work blends sharp storytelling instincts with an attunement to the rhythms of everyday life. Originally from the United States, he earned his BA in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara, before gaining hands-on industry experience in Los Angeles and Atlanta, contributing to feature films, television series, and game shows. Now completing his MA in Creative Practice: Film and Lens-Based Media at Atlantic Technological University in Galway, Elliott focuses on producing while pursuing a broader passion for stories that feel personal yet speak to something larger, accessible on the surface but layered with deeper meaning.

Elliott’s creative practice is rooted in collaboration, adaptability, and a keen awareness of how place shapes story. His recent short film, Better in Person, shot on location in Galway, exemplifies this approach, drawing on the city’s textures, rhythms, and cultural nuances to create a romantic narrative that reflects the universality of modern connection. Working with limited resources but a committed cast and crew, Elliott navigated every stage of production, from early planning to final cut, approaching each decision with both creative vision and logistical precision.

His work explores the intersection of personal truth and shared experience, favoring moments where subtle gestures carry emotional weight. Integrating a producer’s structural clarity with a director’s openness to discovery, he allows stories to evolve organically, whether through the framing of an unspoken glance or the pacing of beats in the edit.

For Elliott, filmmaking is an ongoing dialogue between plan and practice, between the imagined and the lived. His process embraces both discipline and unpredictability, leaving space for the unexpected moments where the story seems to reveal itself, and in doing so, invites the audience to see a little more clearly.

Mfelliott400@gmail.com, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm15726056/?ref_=fn_all_nme_1

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Horizontal Poster for Red Dirt Road 2025

Mike Elliott MA in Creative Practice

Mike Elliott is a film and television producer and director who has built a career working for major studios, networks, and streamers. His films have screened at leading festivals worldwide and played in more than one hundred countries. Since founding Capital Arts Entertainment in 1995, he has produced or directed nearly two hundred titles.

After three decades in Los Angeles, he moved to Ireland to study for a Master’s Degree, marking a shift toward screenwriting and bringing more of his own voice into the stories he tells.

Statement Red Dirt Road is a dramatic screenplay set in Nashville’s country music world. It marks a step away from projects chosen solely for commercial potential and toward more personal storytelling. The story follows Billy Dean, a flawed but magnetic forklift driver recently released from jail, who is chasing a second chance as a singer. As his raw talent collides with the industry’s relentless demands, Billy faces a choice: play the role created by the record company or fight to sing his own truth.

The screenplay combines a long-standing love for music-driven films with a focus on underdog characters who are both their own worst enemies and their own salvation. Red Dirt Road is not about money or fame. It is about identity, redemption, and the courage to step forward, take the mic, and be heard.

Vertical Classic Poster for Red Dirt Road 2025

@mikeelliott2000 @mikeelliott2000 @mikeelliott2000 https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-elliott-5094438/

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

We Are (Not) Here, 2025

Lucia Hrda MA in Creative Practice

Lucia Hrda comes from an operatically-trained background, with a passion for classical arias and ethereal avant-garde sounds. Through her stage performances, she has experimented with a blend of alternative music, traditional folk sounds from Central Europe and the use of sonic soundscapes particularly using the female voice as an instrument.

Two decades ago, Lucia discovered a passion for photography and in her twenties returned to college in London to give some shape to that talent. After another break from education following her BA she again enrolled at college in 2024 and is studying for an MA in Creative Practice at ATU Galway. Lucia’s core research focuses on the representation of nostalgia in the mystery of human existence and the feeling of yearning for something lost or missing. She is symbiotically using the arts of photography, film and music to project her feelings.

Lucia’s short video titled ‘We Are (Not) Here’ along with her melancholic vocals evoke a sense of sentimentality and reminiscence. She created this piece through her contemplation of the perishability of life, memories, places and existence. She feels nostalgic for the notion of present moments drifting into a past that will have no direct recollection for future generations. Her multimedia piece hopes to evoke a sense of hypnosis on the viewers’ senses, directed via her siren-like ethereal voice. She hopes her work can make the audience connect within their own inner emotions creating a state of calm and tranquility.

Self-Portrait, 2025

www.luciahrda.com

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Tide, 2025, Ink on paper.

Siobhan McNutt MA in Creative Practice

Siobhan McNutt is a Galway-based visual artist whose practice moves fluidly between drawing, painting and printmaking. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, London, and the Limerick School of Art & Design, she worked internationally in design for over a decade before returning to focus on her studio practice. Her work is held in private collections across Ireland and internationally, and she currently teaches drawing and design at the Galway Technical Institute.

Siobhan’s current work explores abstract painting and drawing as a means of cultivating presence through an intuitive, open-ended engagement with her chosen media. Her practice responds to the behaviour of her materials, where mark-making and gesture become conduits of both form and meaning. Rooted in a dissatisfaction with systems of control and subjugation – over the environment, its resources and its species – her practice proposes an alternative orientation: releasing the urge to dominate what lies outside the self, and instead cultivating inner attentiveness and discipline.

Her work reflects on the puzzle of how to be in the world as both an individual and a fragment of a greater whole, within a culture shaped by the illusion of separation. Through abstract compositions, she examines the interdependence of animate and inanimate forces, tracing how forms, materials and encounters continuously shape one another.

This hybrid practice of painting and printmaking becomes a meditation on balance: between order and chance, freedom and restraint, rhythm and repetition, the individual and the collective. Her work celebrates the physical act of painting and prioritises the body’s sensory intelligence over intellect.

Attentive to the haptic and proprioceptive (the body’s sense of self-movement, force and position), Siobhan’s work seeks to make visible a lighter, more reciprocal way of being in the world.

Continuum, 2025, Indian ink on paper.

www.siobhanmcnutt.com @siobhanmcnuttstudio siobhanmcnutt@gmail.com

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Unstill, 2025, Video Installation, 55.5 inch X 89.5 inch

Aimee O’Brien O’Riordan MA in Creative Practice

Aimee O’Brien is a multidisciplinary Galway-based visual artist. Originally from Clonmel Co. Tipperary, she graduated from ATU Galway in 2024 with a First-Class Honours Degree in Contemporary Art. Aimee is a multidisciplinary artist; her work is primarily video and multimedia projection installation, centering around the body. Her work is influenced by performance art, surrealism, Avant Garde film, poetry, and philosophy. In 2024 O’Brien was longlisted for the RDS Visual Art Awards for her work presented in ATU’s degree show graduate exhibition. She also received the ATU Academic Excellence Award in 2024 and was shortlisted for the 126 Residency Award that same year. Aimee is currently completing her MA in Creative Practice at ATU Galway.

Aimee’s area of interest within visual art lies in actions of the body, objects or interactions which evoke unexpressed truths. In her art she is attuned to the process of making and play itself, and what comes out of the humanness of touch in contrast with a digital realm. Unstill is a video installation which highlights the tensions between force and control. The pastoral stillness which is expected at a picnic scene or while eating, is here broken by an unseen mechanical force. This paradox of awareness represents the impact of technology on natural experiences, the fragility of quiet moments and the humour of trying to remain calm when things are beyond control. The unseen air expeller contraption is not obviously visible, yet makes its presence known through disturbing the stillness.

Unstill, 2025, Video Installation, 55.5 inch x 89.5 inch

aobrienoriordan@gmail.com @aimeeobrienvisualartist

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Jettison, 2025, Photograph, 6734 × 4490 pixels

Katie Smeraldo MA in Creative Practice

Katie is a Galway-based American filmmaker from Virginia, USA. Growing up exposed to a wide variety of media, she developed a healthy love for the cinematic arts. Katie received her bachelor’s in film and television production from Boston University in 2021.

She then moved to Dublin in 2022 to work in the Irish film industry. After a year, she took a hiatus due to her visa ending and the subsequent writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023.

With ample time to process her goals and aspirations in the film industry, she found that writing and directing gave her the most fulfillment. So, she decided to pursue her master’s to follow her joy.

Katie wanted to not only develop her new practice, but to challenge herself to devote a long period of time to one project. It started with a single thought of, “what if there was a person who was happy the apocalypse happened, so they never have to interact with people again?” That thought led to Jettison, a story about resilience and the beauty of human connection. Katie’s interest lies in the exploration of human themes in settings outside the realm of reality. She uses extraordinary worlds and circumstances to decipher the human experience.

During the development of Jettison, Katie desired to physically step into the world she created. For her master’s project, she has developed an interactive exhibit that combines the practical elements of developing a script and world building elements of her story.

This exercise gives her a unique perspective on storytelling, as she is physically bringing it to life. She invites the viewer to explore the world of Jettison and the joy of story development with her through this piece.

Decay, 2025, Photograph, 3823 × 6413 pixels

@katiesmeraldofilm ktsmeraldo@gmail.com

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left then right then left - School of Design & Creative Arts, Department of Creative Arts & Media, ATU Galway City

Joe Sweeney MA in Creative Practice

Joe Sweeney was born in Mayo, Ireland in 1999. He moved to Galway in 2018 to begin his art career, and is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Creative Practice at Atlantic Technological University. His work is mainly made up of large, colourful paintings of cartoon looking characters and objects. He works mainly in acrylic on wooden panel, but often incorporates digital art, audio and sculptural elements into his practice. In 2022 he took part in the third-year college show titled ‘Search Engine’, followed by the ATU final year graduate showcase in 2023.

Statement My work explores memory, nostalgia, and capitalism through immersive, world-building installations. Drawing on 80s and 90s aesthetics, I create interactive objects that critique media ownership, censorship, and advertising’s inescapability. Set in a future controlled by the fictional mega-corporation DOTCORP, my practice warns how corporate influence reshapes culture, promotes impermanence, and repackages our memories for profit.

@oldjoe__

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