Fern O'Carolan

b. 1991

Artist Fern O’Carolan was born in Dublin, Ireland. She graduated with an MFA from Chelsea College of Arts in London, where she currently lives and works.

O’Carolan’s work explores themes of femininity, innocence, sexuality and their impasse with religious institutions, drawing from her experiences growing up in the Irish Catholic Church. She flirts with the tension between two worlds of ‘saints’ and ‘sinners’, sex and purity, through explorations of nostalgia in personal and national history.

O’Carolan has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Slugtown, Newcastle (2023) and No Gallery, New York (2022) and has been included in group shows at SWAB Art Fair, Barcelona (2024); Karma International, Zürich (2024); Pop Gun x Shipton, New York (2024); M.LeBlanc x Good Weather, Chicago (2024); PLOP, London (2023); Apartment 13 Gallery, Rhode Island (2023); The Bomb Factory, London (2023); Grove, London (2022); WASTE Gallery, London (2022); No Picture on The Walls, Manchester (2022); Ormside Projects, London (2021); SCREW Gallery, Leeds (2021); Karen Tronel Gallery, London (2019); Gallery 46 Whitechapel, London (2019), amongst others.

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