Suzanne O’Haire makes small sculptural assemblages from found objects, junk and castings from discarded packaging. Arrangements of acrobatically stacked, bundled or tentatively balanced forms emerge from impermanent matter, reactivated through re-configuring and assimilating until something holds, suggesting architectural playgrounds, utopian visions or magical portals to an other world. She says that this habitual urge to collect and re-imagine matter ‘filters an external, over-stimulated and saturated world internally, trying to make sense of the chaos – these days increasingly so.
Recent exhibitions include peck o’ trouble, The Regency Town House, Brighton (2018); Be Right Back, Rhoda Street Studio’s, London (2017); In Nothing Flat, Old Granada Studios, Manchester (2017); Exeter Contemporary Open, selected by Alys Williams Dir. Vitrine Gallery and curator Kristian Day, Exeter Phoenix (2017); Then Me, John Marchant Gallery in association with Eagle Gallery/Emma Hill, London and Galerie Simpson, Swansea (2016); Europa, Transition Gallery, London (2016); Creekside Open selected by Richard Deacon, APT Gallery, London (2015). O Haire’s work has featured in Garageland (Remake Remodel issue), and awards include: a-n Mentoring Bursary (2018), Mark Devereux Projects StudioBook17 (2017), Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors (2015).
International / Open Call Programming
April – August 2019
O’Haire joins IMMA through an open call strand of programming which invites applications from international visual arts practices proposing to come live and work at IMMA for periods of up to six months. Selected artists are awarded a free studio, accommodation and bursary for the duration of their stay.
In late 2018 Sean O’Sullivan (Writer & Curator), Antonia Alampi (International Curator, Savvy Berlin) and Seamus McCormack (Programme Manager, New Contemporaries, UK) were invited to decide the awardees for 2019. Suzanne O’Haire was one of four artists selected.