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Member Profile
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2021
Elaine Hoey, Bone of What Absent Thing, 2021, Digital print with dual-channel video; image courtesy the artist.
Joanne Laws: How would you describe your current medium, working processes and previous training?
Flesh and Tongue JOANNE LAWS INTERVIEWS ELAINE HOEY ABOUT THE THEMES UNDERPINNING HER CURRENT WORK.
Elaine Hoey: At the moment, I am exploring a variety of mediums – everything from CGI, live cyber performance, green-screen technologies, Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), to expanded video, photography and installation. Given the conditions of lockdown, I’m very much in an experimental phase, wanting to push the kind of work that I am making into other fields. Right now, I am exploring the potential of virtual spaces for collaborating with other artists, dancers, performers, writers and sound artists. I find that way of working very engaging and it provides a welcome relief from working on my own. In terms of training, I completed an MA in Fine Art Media at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) from 2016-17, during which time I undertook a lot of initial exploration of 3D and digital spaces using Virtual Reality. However, when working with new media and technologies, you are continually learning and investigating new practices. It’s a field that is constantly evolving, as are the themes and critical discourse surrounding them. So, you are never really done training or learning. JL: What new projects have you been working on during lockdown? EH: As well as lecturing part-time in the Fine Art Media Department at NCAD, I have been developing a number of works – both short-term projects and others more long-term. I have two solo exhibitions scheduled for later this year. ‘Flesh and Tongue’ is due to open in June at GOMA Contemporary in Waterford and I am also developing new work for a major solo exhibition, ‘Mimesis’, at Solstice Art Centre in County Meath, later this year. ‘Flesh and Tongue’ is an exhibition that looks at the negative representation of the ‘monstrous’ female body through an exploration of the classic myth of Medusa. I’m interested in reclaiming that myth as a site or a space which challenges patriarchal power and subverts traditional ide-
