Michelle Boyle is an artist and curator interested in identity, journeying and the legacy of human presence on the landscape through the lens of her lived daily experience. She has a studio base beside Lough Ramor in Cavan Ireland and. a developing base in Mumbai. She works in paint, photography, video and installation inviting the viewer in through her quiet and unassuming visual aesthetic described as “sensitive, powerful and poetic”
Michelle’s work gives space for individual and collective engagement presented in exhibitions, public engagement workshops in the landscape and in cross disciplinary collaborations. She has an academic background in Cultural Anthropology (BA) and Landscape Archaeology (MA)
During Covid, Michelle moved her studio outdoors to work and immerse in the water of Lough Ramor which brought a new creative freedom to her artistic process. Through prolonged observation, she became conscious of the layered human- water relationship and need to explore this through her visual aesthetic and academic background in the humanities.
‘In the shock of cold and suspended in water, I am completely present and alive. . Water was most likely our first mirror to ourselves and on a molecular level it is at the very fabric of our DNA. ‘
The artist is currently researching cross cultural water taboos connecting embodied shame with environmental pollution.
Select recent curated projects include ‘If water could speak, what would it say to us? ‘presented IMMA, ‘A meeting of minds’ UK & Ireland Lakes Network, and Global Network of Water Museums, Porto. Artist in The Community Award 2024 with Lough Ramor/ Virginia Town Team public on location workshop ‘Getting to know Lough Ramor’ with Dr Ken Whelan . ‘The Aesthetics of Water – A force for social change ?’ with Dr Sara Ahmed founder The Living Water Museum & ISSER Pune, TAW (Artists think about water) group exhibition ‘Exquisite River’, Ely Centre of Contemporary Art, CT, USA, Library Interventions ‘Watermark’ DLR Dublin. She has published on water veneration practices including Holy Wells in the landscape and recently contributed to ‘Voices from the water’ by Dr Ronan Foley National University of Ireland Maynooth. Exhibitions, curatorial projects and collaborations in progress for 2025 will be added to News Section.
In our modern lives, we’re losing our connection to the land, we cement over it and try to control and tame the bits we allow to exist. We’re losing sight of how essential nature is to our very well-being. I feel this wonderful collection of paintings, is a call to stop for a moment and marvel at the beauty we still have out there. It’s a call to slow down and immerse ourselves in our waters, our woodlands, our mountains, our landscapes. Allow ourselves to be held by nature, allow ourselves to disappear into the majesty of it and as Michelle so eloquently puts it, ‘ see the whole world in one place’.
Neasa Ní Chianáin- Documentary Filmmaker (Solo exhibition by Michelle Boyle ‘Here is where we meet’ United Arts Club Dublin 2024)
