A BALLYDEHOB artist has is celebrating claiming Ireland’s most important art prizes, the RDS Taylor Art Award.
BY MARTIN CLAFFEY
Sorcha Browning’s film installation ‘Eden’ claimed the 2024 RDS Taylor Art Award. The Taylor Art Award is given annually to a graduate of an Irish art college or an Irish art student graduating from an art college abroad to assist them with the development of their career as a visual artist.
This top honour, part of the RDS Visual Art Awards, is accompanied by a €10,000 prize.
The RDS Taylor Art Award, founded in 1860, has long been a cornerstone of Irish visual arts, supporting emerging talent.
Previous winners include acclaimed artists Walter Osborne, Mainie Jellett, Norah McGuinness, and Louis le Brocquy.
Sorcha’s work on Eden explores complexities of human interaction with digital technologies and online environments.
Sorcha is a graduate of the BAVA Sherkin Island, and her success is seen as a significant moment not just for her as an artist but also for the course itself. ‘The BAVA Sherkin Island programme has been instrumental in shaping my artistic voice.
The opportunity to develop my practice in such a unique and immersive environment has been invaluable,’ she said.
‘I’m also so grateful to the RDS Visual Arts Awards and the whole team at the RHA for being such a huge support this past few months in preparing for this exhibition.’
Established in 2000 and accredited in 2007, BAVA Sherkin, facilitated by TU Dublin School of Art and Design, offers a programme that blends academic study with full-time work, providing students with both flexibility and an immersive educational experience.
Sorcha’s work, which includes a triptych sculpture, monitor screen, and dynamic lighting, explores themes of online performativity, digital cycles, and the psychological effects of technological immersion. She critiques the nature of cookie collection and the performative traces we leave in the digital world.
The 2024 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition, featuring Sorcha’s award-winning work, runs until January 18th at the RHA Gallery in Dublin, showcasing 10 artists from a longlist of 120 emerging talents selected from graduate shows across Ireland.
Aisling Moran of the Sherkin Island Development Society said Sorcha’s success underscores the vital role BAVA Sherkin Island plays in shaping Ireland’s contemporary art scene.
‘The programme, supported by Uillinn, West Cork Arts Centre, TU Dublin, and dedicated facilitators like Sherkin-based artist Majella O’Neill Collins and course coordinator Jesse Jones, is essential for fostering artistic innovation and sustaining Sherkin’s identity as the “Island of Artists”.
With graduates like Sorcha Browning and Mary Sullivan — who won the RDS Taylor Art Award in 2018 — the course’s impact on Irish art is undeniable.’
Meanwhile the Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre will showcase work of graduates from Ireland’s new MA Art and Enviroment programme in an exhibition called ‘Meshworking’ which opened this week and runs until December 21st.
