Eilis O'Connell RHA b. 1953

Eilis O’Connell was born in Derry, N. Ireland in 1953.  She studied at the Crawford School of Art, Cork, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston and the Crawford School of Art where she received the only award for Distinction in Sculpture that year.

Other awards include  the GPA Award for Emerging Artists (1981),  Royal Society of Arts Award (1998), a fellowship at The British School at Rome in 1983-1984 and a P.S.I. Fellowship for New York from the Irish Arts Council. While in New York O' Connell  won a two-year residency at Delfina Studios in London where she exhibited widely and won many public art commissions.   O'Connell  has represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1982 and the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1985.  In 2002 her large bronze, Unfold, was lent by the Cass Foundation to the Venice Biennale and her smaller sculptures were shown at the Guggenheim Museum, Venice.  

O’Connell is a founder Director of the National Sculpture Factory in Cork, a former member of the Arts Council of Ireland, a member of Aosdána and a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.