Clíodhna Doherty is an Irish painter working in acrylics. For years her practice looked outward, exploring the female form, other women’s bodies, other women’s experience. That work earned her exhibition credits at Venice, Cannes, and the Louvre, and a reputation for painting women honestly and without apology.

Now the work has turned inward. She is painting herself. What she loves. Where she loves being. The shifting, uncertain terrain of her own identity, still being discovered rather than already known. It is the most personal work she has made and, for the people who stand in front of it, often the most universal.

The mark-making sits between control and release. Neither purely gestural nor rigidly composed, the work holds tension. The kind that comes from trying to be honest about something that resists easy articulation.

She trained at Belfast School of Art and works from a studio in Limerick, Ireland. Her work has been exhibited at the Carrousel du Louvre during Art Basel Paris week, the Venice Biennale, and the Cannes Biennale. She has been featured in BBC News, RTÉ, the Irish Independent, The Business Post, and Stellar Magazine. Her practice has received funding from the Arts Council of Ireland.