OTwo Interviews: Visual Artist Eileen Leonard Sealy

Image Credit: Eileen Leonard Sealy, 'Those who suffer the ecstacy of the animals'

An emerging artist from Dublin, Eileen Leonard Sealy graduated from NCAD in 2023 with a degree in painting. Her newest exhibition, in the ticking room, is currently on display at the LAB Gallery until March 1st 2025.

Entering into the LAB Gallery, the space where Eileen Leonard Sealy is hosting her first solo exhibition, you feel as if you’re entering into another world. A world where everyday objects are suddenly infused with something heavier, something that begs you to take a closer look. Objects of the home strike you as whole worlds in their own right, yet at the same time embedded within history, place and time. Everything seems at once both smaller than you realised, and greater than you could ever comprehend. 

This is an experience that Eileen Leonard Sealy welcomes. An emerging artist from Dublin, she graduated from NCAD in 2023 with a degree in Painting. Her newest exhibition, In the ticking room, is currently on display at the LAB Gallery until March 1st 2025. The exhibition presents works completed by Eileen over the past year, and is curated by Dr Margarita Cappock. 

The role of the curator is often neglected in discussions surrounding exhibitions, yet Eileen strives to highlight the importance of Cappock’s work. “Working with a curator of the calibre of Dr. Margarita Cappock was hugely instrumental in defining the focus of the exhibition with a site specific view to the physical spaces of the LAB Gallery, as well as helping edit the work to contribute to a more cohesive whole.” Eileen credits Cappock’s willingness to go above and beyond in communicating with her as a major reason for why things were able to run so smoothly. “Studio visits and conversations throughout the process kept the lines of communication open and made for a very positive working relationship.” 

The title of the exhibition, In the ticking room, is taken from a poem by W.S. Graham - “I Leave This at Your Ear.” The mood of the poem, quite like Eileen’s exhibition, is simultaneously comforting and unnerving. Eileen speaks further about this choice - “I love this poem by W.S. Graham, and the line chosen suggests various themes in the exhibition. The word ‘ticking’ can mean clocks, and the sense of time passing, and also adds the idea of sound to the silence of visual artworks.” She continues, “‘Ticking’ is also a type of fabric typically used in mattresses and upholstery, which conjures up ideas of interiors from an indeterminate period.”

Eileen’s love (and deep respect) for poetry is evident, and is not limited to the title of her exhibition. In the brochure distributed alongside the exhibition, two poems are featured - 'A Canvas for a Silent Witness' by Sofia Rudi Kent, and 'Pigment' by Evan Kelly. Both of these poems demonstrate imagery that is highly visible in Eileen’s project. Eileen explains the story behind them. “The texts were commissioned to accompany the exhibition, and were written by the two authors, who are both artists themselves. They were given full creative freedom to react to the work in progress, and I feel they brought new insights to my paintings, and added another layer to the exhibition through their own written artistic input.” What follows is a stanza from 'Pigment':

“At the end of the hallway I saw the source of the noise: at first what

I thought was a dog then revealed itself to be bagpipes. Only these

bagpipes seemed to be walking! The instrument dragged itself forward

by the front pipes, with one trailing behind. A maternal affection took

over me, seeing this apparently injured creature and I ran over and 

gathered it into my arms.” (Evan Kelly, 'Pigment')

Eileen Leonard Sealy, 'Down! Like A Young Thing! II'

The relationship between the artist and the audience is one that carries with it certain contradictions. There is an expectation for the artist to present something that is authentic and real, whilst at the same time something that can be consumed by others. In paintings as deeply personal as Eileen’s (her own self-portraits feature in a great number of the works in this exhibition), this relationship appears particularly pertinent. And yet, Eileen says she rarely thinks of others’ reception to her work during her creative process. “I tend not to think of the audience when I am devising and making work. It comes from an authentic place from my own thoughts and experiences, and sometimes those concepts do turn out to be universal, or to resonate with others, but it is never my motivation.”

People have said to me that they related to certain themes within my work, and sometimes they are not even concepts that I had in mind myself, which I find quite surprising.

It feels as if it’s Eileen’s authenticity that grounds her work - by cutting into her own world in a way so earnest and true, her work acts as a conduit between lives lived, allowing the viewer to access parts of their own self that may otherwise recede from view. “People have said to me that they related to certain themes within my work, and sometimes they are not even concepts that I had in mind myself, which I find quite surprising.”

The works featured throughout In the ticking room depict scenes and objects that seem immensely personal to the artist - family photographs, cat-themed rugs, a kitchen with peeling wallpaper. “Some of the interiors are spaces that are personal to me, or to people that I know, while others are glimpses into environments that are not familiar to me but conjure up the lives of others,” Eileen explains. “Within these spaces, objects appear which suggest narratives, sometimes personal, sometimes imaginary, but always staged like a kind of theatre or film set. A lot of preliminary work goes into identifying locations, making costumes or props, and staging the compositions.”

I think that there sometimes is a human tendency to attribute a kind of sentience to objects, in a way that is not just sentimental attachment, but rather a kind of magical thinking.

There is a gravity to our possessions - artefacts of our lives - that can often go unconsidered, and that this exhibition invites us to explore. Such objects are necessarily imbued with human history and presence. Objects that could, to the impartial observer, appear to be mundane, grow to represent something greater than themselves through our interactions with them, come to represent worlds invisible to the naked eye, come to develop their own personalities and voices and language. Eileen says that this line of thinking influenced her greatly in the creation of this collection of artwork - “I think that there sometimes is a human tendency to attribute a kind of sentience to objects, in a way that is not just sentimental attachment, but rather a kind of magical thinking.” 

Yet to define the theme of this exhibition in such strict terms, merely constrained to something as simple as ‘the role of objects’, would be a mistake, Eileen maintains. “Like many makers, one body of work can have many subterranean layers which house different hopes and different meanings than the initial ones that the viewer may encounter. The process of describing these strata can be a disheartening one, as an important reason that art exists is because there is so much life that the written word falls short on touching.” 

And it’s true - each time you stand in front of one of Eileen’s artworks, you find yourself noticing something different each time, and feeling something different. We are limited by the boundaries of language: how do you go about describing something so ephemeral? Eileen’s decision to include poems within her exhibition brochure makes perfect sense - in lieu of the ability to distinctly identify what makes up In the ticking room, using poetry to summon up similar emotions to that which the artwork evokes is truly fitting. 

There is a difference with a solo show, as you are making a whole cohesive body of new work, which allows for greater development of themes and concepts...Being my debut solo show, it is also the first time people will get a clearer picture of my concerns and range as an artist.

Eileen’s work has been showcased in group exhibitions in the past. These include the 193rd and 194th Annual Exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, at the Dean Art Studio, and at the Draíocht Gallery alongside the Shell/ter collective. Yet In the ticking room is Eileen’s first solo exhibition, which is certainly a contrasting experience. “There is a difference with a solo show, as you are making a whole cohesive body of new work, which allows for greater development of themes and concepts,” Eileen explains. “Being my debut solo show, it is also the first time people will get a clearer picture of my concerns and range as an artist.” Eileen showcases her range and her perspective of the world wonderfully. The choice of the LAB Gallery as the venue for the exhibition seems to be perfectly suited to this task, as well - it is difficult to envision Eileen’s collection of works anywhere better. “The LAB Gallery as a venue was also crucial as there is the space to exhibit the full variety of media I use, such as the cast cement tondos, and the incorporation of found objects such as the mantelpiece with mirrors.”

In the ticking room, The Lab Gallery

 

In the ticking room includes approaches beyond paintwork. On the second floor of the exhibition is a presentation of oil on cast cement tondos that tap into early modern Renaissance-style artworks. Taking its name from the Italian word ‘rotondo’ or ‘round’, tondi were popularised in 15th-century Renaissance Italy. Eileen’s tondos are 30 centimetres in diameter and showcase tiny yet highly-stylised worlds for us to imagine further beyond their circular scopes.

Eileen speaks to us about her experience attending NCAD, and how the opportunities the college gave her aided her professional journey as an artist. “Art college was instrumental in providing the context, time and space to develop as an artist. I spent time abroad on Erasmus in the Netherlands, and I also took a year out in Germany to do my own work, and these experiences added to my general awareness of the European contemporary art scene.” 

Eileen’s 2023 degree show Chance growths of desire, and colder carries some thematic and visual harmonies across that we can see in In the ticking room, spotlighting a coherent motivation within the artist’s concerns and vision. Her 2023 show exhibits an affinity with the realm of theatre, costume and set design that we also meet in her solo exhibition this year. What is visible throughout Eileen’s work is a semi-breakage of the fourth wall: a term more commonplace in the critique language of film, theatre and literature. However, Eileen’s art acknowledges its nature as art, something we can see in 2023 works such as In the Harbour Mouth she Stands and Solid matter flickering in broad daylight.

Having the maker depicted in the work reminds us, the spectators, of our place in the room. We see the artist on display while we see her in the room, we see ourselves viewing the art and what we see is ourselves being invited in. In the ticking room entertains distinctly recognisable meta-techniques, but what it does with them should not be overexamined, for our experience with each piece changes every time we dare to look. 

While NCAD offers its students the essential resources and space during their studies there, it is, unfortunately, something that becomes a daunting absence after they graduate. Two essentials for any artist are space and privacy. To have your own space as an artist is not only a privilege but a paramount necessity, and Eileen points to the reality of this: “There is a crisis in the availability of studio space in Dublin.” How does one create with family members, close friends or stranger housemates glaring over your shoulder? We’re sure the experience differs for all – but alas, it cannot possibly help the creative process.

In the ticking room would not exist without the support of the Fingal County Council Artists support scheme in partnership with the RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts) for which Eileen was the 2024 recipient. Eileen shares with us her experience:  “Fingal County Council have been very supportive, and I was awarded a bursary to enable me to work towards my first solo show. I was also lucky enough to have been awarded the Fingal studio at the RHA which has been crucial in providing me the space to work for one year, particularly given the large scale of some of my paintings.”

This coveted award provides a funded studio space for one year and offers the recipient an opportunity to cultivate and expand on their oeuvre within the institutional framework of the RHA. This opportunity could not have come at a better time for Eileen, which she describes as “absolutely invaluable.” 

Support schemes that offer bursaries and fellowships play a vital role in fostering and sustaining the professional growth of the artistic community. When asked about this in Ireland, Eileen expresses that “artists are reasonably well supported, within the limited resources available to the Arts Council. The pilot scheme for Basic Income for Artists is in its third year, and while I am not a recipient myself, I do know artists who have found it life-changing in providing the ability to continue working. If this scheme gets rolled out to the wider community after the trial period it will be very welcomed.”  

If our artists are being pushed out of the country in search of greener (non-extortionate) pastures, our country will lose its colour.

However, the possession of privacy and space has become a luxury for many, many people. While discussing these schemes, Eileen stresses how, regardless of the available supports, “the impossibility of finding anywhere affordable to live will inevitably drive artists out of the country.” From April 2023 to April 2024, 34,700 Irish citizens emigrated. Staggering figures show that young adults cannot access independent housing, with over 40% of working people in Ireland aged 24-34 still living at home under their parents'/guardians' roof. It is becoming clearer each year that employment is not a guarantee for independence.

Ireland is a largely rural country, with only four (semi) major cities i.e. Dublin, Limerick, Cork and Belfast (when you include Northern Ireland). Dublin is Ireland’s arts and culture epicentre, hosting various galleries, museums, and theatres and home to two highly commended art colleges: NCAD and IADT. While Eileen praises her college experience and the supporting awards she has received thus, she does not undermine the tremendously harsh reality for young people in Ireland trying to establish themselves professionally. If our artists are being pushed out of the country in search of greener (non-extortionate) pastures, our country will lose its colour.

When asked about taking the plunge to pursue a career in art, Eileen says, “I started getting serious about the prospects of Art College while I was in secondary school. Since then, I have been focused on pursuing this, and have been committed to Painting as a career.” Eileen’s commitment is evident in her first solo exhibition; the length of hyper-attention to detail and the sheer scale of thought and deliberation put into each piece is a testimony to her artistic fidelity.

There are various group shows that Eileen is working towards in 2025, as well as submitting to open-call exhibitions. When asked about her next show, Eileen tells us that she’s currently working towards a solo show in a seventeenth-century church in the town of Eu in Normandy. “This will be all new work, and will lead on from In the ticking room.”  If you happen to find yourself in Normandy, you’ll know exactly where to go.

In the ticking room will be exhibited until Sunday March 1st in the LAB Gallery, Foley Street, Dublin 1. Open Monday to Saturday, 10:00 – 18:00. For those with further interest in Eileen’s work there will be an in-depth Artist Talk walkthrough taking place in the LAB on January 31st at 15:00. Admission is free, but booking is required!