Artist CV
Profile
Caoilfhionn is a Waterford-born, Dublin-based artist working across film, painting, and performance. Employing a metamodernist feminist lens, her work examines the meshing of dissonant realities within the regional town square - both physical and algorithmic. Through ethnographic play and material experimentation, she traces the shifting visual textures of contemporary working-class world-building and transgenerational memetics.
Her curiosity toward the meta-performance of local places and affinity for material-intensive physicality are informed by a decade spent as an artistic interceptor and tradeswoman-necromancer of lost stories - leading socially-engaged mural projects. Across public collaboration, reflective studio work, and Gen Z internet-enthralldom, she reimagines local expression and artifice from within the disembodied age, pulling it toward the tangible.
Education
2019 - 2023: BA (Hons) Visual Art (1:1), South East Technological University, Waterford.
Thesis title: 'Exploring the Methodology of Post-Internet Artists Utilising Technology to Appropriate and Archive the Social Fabric of ‘Poor Image’ Digital Ephemera.'
Supervisor: Dr. Susan Connolly
Employment
2014 - Present: Freelance Artist & Event Facilitator
Delivering creative workshops and mural projects for participants of all ages and abilities across educational, cultural, healthcare, and public contexts.
Completed 100+ private commissions for individuals, businesses, festivals, and community organisations, spanning public art, portraiture, and site-specific projects.
Clients include: Creative Waterford, Creative Ireland, Creative Europe & Erasmus+, Waterford Walls, Imagine Festival, An Post, TG4, RTÉ, Waterford Gallery of Art, Waterford Area Vocational Enterprise Training, University Hospital Waterford, and various second-level education sites and libraries within Waterford.
Presenting talks and tours for People Before Profit, SETU, Waterford Gallery of Art, Waterford Walls, and Signal Arts Centre.
Ongoing involvement with Waterford Walls since 2014, assisting national and international artists.
2023 - Present: Community Manager, Big Look (partnered with Artform Dunmore East School of Art)
Complimenting my studio practice, my role at Big Look involves supporting artist-led learning through administration, event programming, and educational resource design. I act as a liaison between practicing artists, mentors, and audiences across Ireland and abroad, and maintain a commitment to accessibility in art education, collaboration, and digital innovation. Working within this network not only strengthens my professional practice but also deepens my hands-on engagement with the Irish visual arts ecology, curatorial development, and contemporary art education.
January - April 2025: Marketing Manager, Creative Europe & Erasmus+ funded Residency, Lisbon
Marketing Manager for the Residency, overseeing campaign visuals, public communications, partner liaison, and content strategy.
Worked at Safra Gallery for three months, assisting with gallery installation and logistics, curation and visitor engagement.
Helped organise and participated in two international group exhibitions.
Selected Exhibitions, Collaborations, Symposiums and Interviews
2026 - Tour: Crafting and delivering tour of Dublin visual ephemera, in aid of People Before Profit’s ‘Stand Up for the Arts’ campaign
2025 - Presentation of work: ‘We're Coming Out’ segment of Pride event, Garter Lane
2025 - Group show:‘Breaking the Patterns’, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Waterford
2025 - Group show: ‘Breaking the Patterns’, a Creative Europe Project, Lisbon
2025 - Group show: ‘Safra Diva’, Safra, Lisbon
2025 - Crisis/death/resurrection; a painting symposium:Rachael Gunning, Edinburgh-based art academic, gave presentation ‘Necessary Connections / Caoilfhionn Hanton - Affectionate painting + the rhizome’ upon my show ‘Biblical Milf’
2024 - Solo show:'Biblical Milf', Daylight Glasnevin & Lucky’s, Dublin
2024 - Group show: ‘Art in the Gardens, Open Call Winter Exhibition’, Mount Congreve, Waterford
2024 - ‘Panacea’, Exhibition organiser and exhibitor, Waterford Gallery of Art
2024 - Hosting Artist Talk with artist Louise Cherry at opening of her exhibition ‘All that’s left of you in me’, Signal Arts Centre, Bray
2023 - VAI ‘MiniVAN’ interview: Caoilfhionn Hanton / Street Art
2023 - Launch of my artist commission and Landscape Symposium speaker, Waterford Gallery of Art
2023 - 2024 - Multiple Hermans group exhibitions, Dublin
2023 - ‘My Teeth Hurt, My Hands Hurt, My Feet Hurt’ BA Degree Show, SETU + Garter Lane
2022 - ‘Artists in Focus: Una Sealy’ Film by Rhys Wallace, commissioned by Creative Ireland & Waterford Gallery of Art / RHA Summer Exhibition
2022 - An Post Urban Art Stamp Series: Jack Charlton mural immortalised as a national postage stamp
2014 - 2022 - Annual Muralist with Waterford Walls Festival
2017 - 2020 - Hit The North Mural Festival, Belfast
Awards, Residencies & Grants
2025 - Creative Europe Art Residency, ‘Breaking the Patterns’ Lisbon
2023 - Longlisted, RDS Visual Arts Award
2023 - Graduate Awardee, Waterford Gallery of Art (commissioned into municipal collection)
2023 - Graduate Residency, GOMA Waterford
2022 - Creative Ireland/Waterford grant recipient for inclusive youth mixed-media workshop series, ‘The Blaasification of Waterford’
Press
2024 - Una Sealy’s portrait of me being used in Leaving Cert Art paper, question 1
2023 - Visual Artists Ireland’s News Sheet miniVAN interview for their Street Art edition
2023 - Irish Times article on my mural on Arbour Hill of Spicebag’s iconic imagery
2023 -Totally Dublin article exploring urban artists thoughts on recent Public Art Bill
2022 - Video interview with An Post alongside Niall O'Lochlainn
2022 - Creative Ireland/ Creative Waterford funding The Blaasification of Waterford Workshops
2022 - Waterford News & Star coverage of Ballygunner hurling mural
2020 - Sky News coverage of murals painted during 2020 COVID crisis
2020 - Video clip of Ted Hastings mural shown on Graham Norton show featuring actor Adrian Dunbar
2019 - RTE article on Waterford Walls 2019
2018 - Interview with the Shona Project
2017 - Waterford Walls 2017
2017 - Interior bedroom makeover with Make-A-Wish.ie
2016 - Irish Examiner article on Waterford Walls 2016
2015 - Irish Examiner article on Waterford Walls 2015
Referees
Dr. Susan Connolly - Lecturer, South East Technological University
Email: Susan.Connolly@setu.ie | Phone: +353 (0)51 845504
Luke Currall - Visual Arts Coordinator, Waterford City & County Council
Email: lcurrall@waterfordcouncil.ie