Hazel O’Sullivan

Hazel O’Sullivan is a multi-disciplinary visual artist working in sculpture and painting, examining discourse around cultural identity from an Irish perspective. O’Sullivan is currently researching archetypal representations of Ireland from the perspective of decolonisation, visualising a combination of ancient and future narratives as imagined artefacts, devices and mythological architectures. 

The works O’Sullivan makes confront neoliberalism and commercialism on defining contemporary Irish identity from a perspective of ambiguity, using retrofuturism as an aesthetic tool to imagine both ancient and future narratives. It’s been her goal to visualise these duo-narratives as a method for exploring archetypal images for the future, by relating to the broader context of global decolonisation and interrogating the characteristics which establish cultural identity as a whole. O’Sullivan attempts to tackle each project she investigates in a unique way by adapting her processes appropriate to the site-specificity of my artistic outcomes, with colours and materials symbolic to aspects of Irish heritage. Upholstery, wallpapers and switchboard paraphernalia are amongst the materials that decorate her wooden sculptures, and Celtic gospel manuscripts alongside references to Irish Mythology inspire the compositions of her paintings.