NEST Portrait Artists - Zsolt Basti, Sahoko Blake, Una Sealy, Dorothy Smith

Draíocht welcomes NEST Portrait Artists - Zsolt Basti, Sahoko Blake, Una Sealy and Dorothy Smith to the Artists Studio for 6 weeks over January and February.

On the occasion of NEST, Draíocht's major multidisciplinary festival of new works in performance and visual art which maps the ‘here and now’ through the eyes of children and young people, aged just a few days old to 22 years old in Dublin 15, the Gallery presents a new series of specially commissioned paintings and drawings from four of Ireland’s leading artists.

This exhibition will feature up to 45 works of portraiture and still life inspired by the sitters, and Curated by Sharon Murphy. This significant body of work will be bequeathed by Draíocht to Fingal County Council's Municipal Art Collection.

"Nest has given me the unique insight of seeing the world of growing up or studying in Dublin 15, through the eyes of the next generation. The project has brought us into their worlds, their schools, homes, interests, and families; and the live portrait sittings in Draíocht studio provided an opportunity for collaborative engagement, chats and fun with the young people and their Ambassadors. The resulting artworks will form a visual record of a particular time and place, and of a two-way exchange between Artist and Host" - Una Sealy, Artist

Artist Biographies

Zsolt Basti

Zsolt Basti is a Hungarian painter who has been living and practising in Ireland since 2005. He employs personally familiar subjects as his central focus, before altering and abstracting their appearance as a commentary on the revising of disintegrating memory.

Basti’s engaging use of colour, composition and the prominence of the uncanny core subject resonate deeply with onlookers, often provoking a subconscious examination of one’s own memory or flashback.

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Sahoko Blake

Sahoko Blake's practice in the main revolves around oil paintings, charcoal drawings and detailed pencil works.

Artist Website

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Una Sealy

Una Sealy is an award winning artist, a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, and the Professor of Art at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Her work is held in many public collections including NUI Galway, DCU, Waterford County Council, Galway County Council, and Fingal County Council. She has held 11 solo exhibitions to date, as well as numerous group exhibitions in Ireland and abroad. In 2019, she was one of ten artists invited by the Department of Foreign Affairs to represent Ireland in China. She was the judge on both series of RTE’s Painting the Nation programme, and is a tutor in Painting, Drawing and Anatomy at the RHA School.

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Dorothy Smith

Dorothy is a visual artist whose practice is concerned with the built environments in which people live and work and in particular the construction and lived experience of public space.

Her particular interest is drawing is in how drawing can interact with contemporary places and concerns. Her practice involves studio based work and publicly engaged projects.

Dorothy is an Associate member of the RHA. Recent exhibitions and projects include; solo shows, Land Marks, RHA Ashford Gallery and Made and Considered in darc space, Dublin; Drawing Time in the RHA gallery; Women Artists and the RHA, National Gallery Of Ireland; An Post commemorative stamp commissions; Arts Council funded public art projects Dalymount – Mapping a unique Architectural Space and Spatial Stories. Her most recent public art project This is Our Place A Survey of Dalymount Park, The Home of Irish Football a limited edition map and publication celebrating the community and material culture of Dublin Stadium. She is currently Curator in Residence in Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda.

Artist website

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