Alumni Stories- Meabh Hennelly
"Trying again and again, getting rejections, learning to not be put off by them and then applying again. I felt that if I just kept going things would start to work out for me."
Name: Méabh Hennelly
Discipline: Media with Critical Cultures
Location: Dublin
What career path did you want to follow as a child?
I had all sorts of things I wanted to do as a kid. I had a good stretch of wanting to be a paleontologist because I loved watching Walking with Dinosaurs as a child! I also wanted to be a vet because I really love animals but following a transition year work experience in a vet’s where I saw a surgery happen I realised I absolutely did not have the stomach for it. I always liked art, made art, and went to galleries but didn’t seriously consider it until a few years after I left school, because in school I was good at art but by no means the best. In my mind people who went to art college were some sort of virtuosos that I wasn’t. Initially I went into UCD and studied Sociology and Politics for about a year and a half but realised my heart wasn’t in it and left early without a real plan. That was a difficult time for me as I didn’t know where I was going but I knew I had to pull the plug on UCD.
Why did you decide to study at National College of Art & Design?
After I left UCD I knew I liked art but wanted to see how seriously I liked it so I went to The Liberties College Dublin and did a one year QQI Level 6 course, ‘Art & Craft in Professional Practice’ I really enjoyed it. I didn’t have specific intentions of going to college but a handful of weeks before the NCAD portfolio deadline a friend suggested I seriously think about going to art college and it planted a seed in my mind. With the help of my tutor Eilish McLoughlin I put together a portfolio out of the work I had been doing on that course with just about 3 weeks to go. I couldn’t have pulled that off without Eilish’s guidance at that time. She was a fantastic help to me. I was really stunned when I got into NCAD, I hadn’t put my hopes up too much because I hadn’t specifically done a portfolio course. I thought that might disadvantage me but I was so shocked and delighted when I got in.
Tell us a bit about your award winning exhibition?
My piece ‘When She Photographs Him, No.1’ got into the 191st RHA Annual Exhibition. ‘The 191st RHA Annual Exhibition is Ireland’s largest and longest running exhibition of visual art. Open to all artists working in paint, drawing, print, sculpture, photography and architecture, the RHA Annual attracts a large public and critical audience. With sales in excess of €500,000 in 2020, the Annual is a key event of the art calendar for both public and private buyers of all levels.’ - RHA Gallery
My work is a photographic image of male figure which refers to the idea of a woman as the photographer and a man as her subject, inverting the age-old trope of the male artist and his female muse. This piece is part of a larger series of the same name. These images were shot in extreme low light conditions, capturing outlines and glimpses of a male body. Inspired by collage art, historically an analogue medium, I took that style into a digital format and deconstructed my images, pushing them visually by altering the colour and opacity as well as cutting and cropping to create an atmosphere and mood in the photographs that are suggestive of warmth, intimacy and eroticism.
What is the one experience during all the time you have invested in exhibition proposal submissions that has informed you most in your career preparation and work to date?
From the beginning when I came to NCAD I began applying for things, for open calls, for competitions, as much as I could so I could learn and improve and figure out how to get noticed and get into shows. Trying again and again, getting rejections, learning to not be put off by them and then applying again. I felt that if I just kept going things would start to work out for me. When I got into the open submission show in the Highlanes Gallery Drogheda and was shortlisted for their Janet Mularney prize it was enormously rewarding and proved to me that it was worth trying. So I continued to reach for things, for long shots like the RHA and sometimes things come through like the way the RHA has done. To have started to build up the experience that I have before even finishing my degree has given me such a confidence boost and made me feel really hopeful as I continue to pursue my artistic career.
If you were chatting with current NCAD students today about call-for-entries opportunities, what is the one piece of advice you would offer?
Start early and just keep on submitting so you get used to rejection so it won’t sting as much when you inevitably get some no’s and also to start building experience applying for things. I really felt the standard of my work improved as I applied and got into shows because I was competing with professional artists so it makes you up your game and to realise you are a professional artist too and have as much right to be there as anyone else.
