Eleanor Duffin – Visual Artist

Eleanor Duffin is an Irish born artist based in Dublin. She studied fine art in Limerick School for Art and Design receiving a bachelor of Arts in Sculpture and Combined Media in 2003. While in Limerick, one of her main projects was an instalation called “observing Observation” in which she set up a mirrored cubicle where members of the public were invited to walk around the cubicle observing them self and then they could watch themselves looking at themselves on a time delayed video.

Eleanor went on to achieve a Master of Arts from the National College of Art and Design, Ireland in 2005. While studying in Dublin she took part in an exchange and spent some time in Geneva at the physics institute for research in conjunction with CERN. While here, Eleanor created a piece inspired by something she had heard about Korean kids have social problems caused by to much use of there computers and the internet. This piece was called “Withdrawal”.

For her final project for her Master of Arts, Eleanor created another installation inspired by seeing bankers and other office workers, working late, it comprised of 5 digital video screens showing the night time view of offices from outside the window looking in, syncing up every so often.

Having finished her studies, she moved to London hoping to do some work in Video editing or something similar, and while there had a chance to show the office project again but this time on a much smaller scale which she was not to pleased about.

After struggling for a while and being a bit dis-heartened,Eleanor decided to move to Japan to teach English for a while between 2006 and 2008 which she really enjoyed. While teaching she never really gave up her art and so made beautiful video based on the Japanese Art of origami. This was called “to fold a Crane”.

After her time in Japan, returning to Dublin in 2009 she managed to get an internship at “FOUR”, a Gallery on Capel st. Here she was the Gallery manager and over-saw funding requests, seeing artist and deciding what to show, pretty much the running of the gallery. Eleanor really values her time spent at “FOUR” as she feels it thought her how to be professional. It also helped her make some valuable contacts but at the same time, she felt she needed to find a starting point for her own work.

In June of 2009 she applied for a residency in Reykjavik in Iceland but had to apply to the Arts Council of ireland for some funding which they graciously obliged. While there she created an installation based on the view from her window which he looked out every day. It was of a beautiful peninsula. “Appropriated Objects”

Eleanor is currently serving a residency in “Firestation” in Dublin and also researching at the “Stanely Kubrick Archive” in London for an up-coming project.

~ by davidmcs on February 7, 2011.