Tina Whelan

Bio

“It is the ability of art to open up the possibility of the impossible” – Doris Salcedo

Tina Whelan is a Cork based artist and studio member of the Backwater. Whelan studied painting in Belfast College of Art and received a Masters by Research in 2021 from the Crawford College of Art. She has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of Arts Council awards.

Since, 2010 she has worked in fibre art, which has led to her using a wide range of technical processes in forming, pigmenting, laminating, stitching, casting, felting, and building her sculptural interactions.

Whelan’s MA by Research, The social realities of the Irish Uterus; focuses on the impact of national ideology and Catholic ethics on Irish obstetrics, particularly viewed through the lens of the symphysiotomies that occurred in Ireland from the 1940’s- 1980’s. This body of work gives voice to the silenced, nearly hidden and peculiarly Irish story of symphysiotomies.

Artist Statement

I am interested in finding ways to create counter-monuments that bear witness, in an ethical way, to episodes of such trauma. I seek haptic strategies for affective encounters that present an individual’s  experience of the affects of land and its politics to another. More information on this research can be found here and here.

Email tinawhelan3artist@gmail.com

Website www.cargocollective.com/tinawhelanartist

Membership: Studio