Camille Souter, 1929–2023; b. Northampton, England; lived and worked predominantly in Achill, Co. Mayo. Souter was raised in Ireland and originally trained as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital London, before taking up painting in the mid-1950s.  

From early works, often abstract in appearance yet always subject-based, to more representational figurative work that came later, Souter’s endless curiosity in the journey of life is a constant. Her work is firmly based within reality, the everyday and, more often than not, the extraordinary everyday depicted in its sheer simplicity. Often working in series, recurring themes have included flight and the mechanics of flying, carnivals and circus, landscape and weather, the destruction of war, extraction and industry, raw meat and medical notes.  

Souter is the recipient of numerous awards from the Prix de Ville de Monaco (1977) to the IMMA Glen Dimplex award for contribution to visual arts in Ireland (2000). She was an Honorary member of the RHA and was elected Saoi of Aosdána in 2009. In 2015, Trinity College Dublin awarded her an honorary doctorate. Her works can be seen in many public and private collections including the National Gallery of Ireland, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Ulster Museum, and the Arts Council of Ireland. Souter’s work within IMMA Collection is regularly exhibited at IMMA, as well as at venues nationally and internationally.  

Souter exhibited extensively from the 1960s onwards and represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale (1961). Major retrospectives of her work were held at Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (1980); Ulster Museum, Belfast (2000); and more recently at Custom House Studios, Mayo (2019), in celebration of the artist’s 90th year. 

Alberta Whittle, 1980; b Bridgetown Barbados; lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. Barbadian-Scottish Whittle’s multifaceted practice is preoccupied with developing a personal response to the legacies of the Atlantic slave trade, unpicking its connections to institutional racism, white supremacy and climate emergency in the present. Against an oppressive political background Whittle aims to foreground hope and engage with different forms of resistance.  

Whittle received her MFA from the Glasgow School of Art (2011); PhD at the University of Edinburgh (2024); and is currently a Research Associate at The University of Johannesburg. She has exhibited and performed in various solo and group shows internationally and represented Scotland in the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Margaret Tait Award winner (2018/19); a Turner Bursary, Frieze Artist Award and Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award (2020); and Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists (2022).    

Recent solo exhibitions and performances include: ‘Under the skin of the ocean, the thing urges us up wild’, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland (2024); ‘between a whisper and a cry’, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2023); and ‘create dangerously’, Modern One, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2023). Her work has been acquired by the UK National Collection; National Galleries of Scotland; Tate, London; Barbados National Art Gallery; and Glasgow Museums Collection.

As part of the exhibition, Whittle’s film RESET (2020) will be screened on Living Canvas at IMMA,  from Thursday  5 –  Wednesday 18 March and Thursday 18 – 24 June.

In addition, a curated series of film and moving image works that link to and extend the shared thematics of Souter and Whittle will be screened: Farah Al Qasimi, Surge (2022), Emre Hüner, [ELEKTROİZOLASYON] (2021-2024), and Jane Jin Kaisen, Wreckage (2024). These screenings will take place from Wednesday 27 August – Thursday 9 September.

Living Canvas at IMMA runs daily from Monday to Sunday from 9.30am to 6.30pm.