Aoife is a printmaker and textiles artist from county Kildare, working between Ireland and Scotland. Graduating in 2024 with First Class Honours in Contemporary Art Practice from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, her work explores folklore, mythology, history, and early Christian saints, blending traditional medieval art forms with contemporary techniques.

Hi Aoife! Could you tell us a little bit about how your artistic journey started?
Its funny because usually when I see artists being asked this question they always say they knew from a young age they wanted to be an artist and that they were always drawing etc. I would say I have always been creative but when I was younger I was just obsessed with history. My brothers and I watched Horrible Histories on the television and then we had the entire book series. I also remember having an Ancient Egypt phase (I feel like this is a common phase to go through in your childhood as a history obsessed adult). In school, I remember being delighted when the teacher said take out your history books. We learned a lot about Irish history in school and I think learning this made a huge impression on me and the importance of learning your history to understand your culture. This also made me realise the importance of the Irish language and I became very passionate about that.

I ended up going to university for Irish, French, and German but it obviously wasn’t meant for me because here I am now an artist! I dropped out in my second year but I was surrounded by art college students and they really encouraged my hobby of 35mm photography, telling me that yes you can go to art college for this. I was seeing the things that they were doing and it seemed like the dream. I wasn’t even aware of processes like screen printing back then or even creative career paths like graphic design, so to have this insight from my friends was eye opening. Because of complications with funding at home in Ireland, I looked for cheaper alternatives abroad and at the time Scotland was free to EU students. I applied to Glasgow School of Art for Fine Art Photography and thank god I didn’t get in because I have not picked up a camera since. I was accepted into Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Having access to a printmaking studio 6 days a week plus extremely encouraging and knowledgeable technicians, my practice really flourished. I came from making a 3 layer A3 size screen print max to printing 100 x 70cm prints that were made up of 25 layers.

It was also through art college where I really found my voice in my work. In my portfolio course I felt huge imposter syndrome and I feel like around that time I just created the kind of art that I thought people wanted to see or what was seen as “contemporary”. But my love and passion for history and folklore really merged into my practice when I entered second year and I created this project commemorating Irish women who played massive roles in the revolutionary years in Ireland. These women did not receive the recognition they deserved so I used my practice to highlight this and educate people on the issue. This made me realise that my art could be used to educate and inform people about things I was interested in. I did not need to replicate what I thought people wanted to see as I think it really worked to my advantage that I was so passionate about what I was making and what I was researching.

Which artists inspire you? Are there non-artistic influences such as literature or music that impact your work?
As if it wasn’t obvious enough, I take huge inspiration from historical artworks, particularly from the medieval times, such as textiles, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, stone carvings, etc. A lot of the times these objects aren’t attributed to a specific artist but they are of huge significance to my work and need to be mentioned when talking about my work. 

Due to my interest in the medieval times, it is only natural that I look up to those artists involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Since moving to Scotland, I have become obsessed with the work of Phoebe Anna Traquair and her involvement in Edinburgh’s Arts and Crafts Movement. It is inspiring to see an artist who worked across a whole range of mediums and produced a huge amount of beautiful work. I also am incredibly inspired by the work of John Duncan. When I moved to Dundee to start my degree, I remember seeing Riders of the Sídhe in the McManus Galleries the first week I arrived. I travelled to galleries all over Scotland to view his work and it was so fortunate to come full circle in November of 2024 when my print ‘St. Brendan And His Monks Meet Jasconius’ was displayed in an exhibition alongside Duncan’s by the University of Dundee Museum. The highlight of my career so far! Other artists I look up to just to name a few are Alasdair Gray, the women of Dún Emer Guild, Jessie M King, William Wilson, Harry Clarke, Aubrey Beardsley.. To be honest, anyone involved in the Arts and Crafts movement. Oh and of course, Hieronymus Bosch!

I often consult historical texts when conducting research but I have also turned to literature for inspiration. I have recently finished reading Dante’s Divine Comedy in preparation for my residency in Florence and I have also begun reading the Greek classics like the Iliad and the Odyssey. But I am currently in the process of creating work in response to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I am not sure why I never read these before but I highly recommend it as some of these stories had me roaring in laughter.

What do you do to keep motivated and interested in your work?
I am extremely fortunate to be interested and working within the realms of history, mythology, and folklore, and how all three of these topics weave into each other. This means I have a never ending supply of material to work with. For example, last year I went to Lindisfarne which the two pieces both titled Arrival (but one created in embroidery and one in screen print) came from. Just from that small island alone there was so many avenues to go down: the saints Cuthbert and Aidan, the first ever historian Bede, the history of Northumbria and Oswald, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the infamous Viking attack in 793AD. The Vikings then could lead you onto Norse mythology, or to Viking Dublin, or to York/Jorvik, or to King Alfred the Great or on to the Normans. History is just a never ending thread leading you on to many different events and people and places. 

I chose to go down the Viking route with my work from Lindisfarne as I was struck with inspiration after seeing The Domesday Stone in the Priory Museum. I also discovered through my research the fantastical historical account that describes apocalyptic warning signs and the arrival of fiery dragons in the sky when the raiders arrived (yes this is from an account by Alcuin of York, a member of the clergy in the court of Charlemagne). I think what is so special about this period of history is the embellishment of mythology and folklore onto historical events or people. I have just come from a huge body of work depicting saints and their folklore. These saints, if you peel back the layers and layers of magic and miracles, you reach the historical person. But what are these figures without those layers?

I feel like I am always working from a backlog of ideas. Although I visited Lindisfarne last summer, I still don’t feel I am finished with it. I got to spend a substantial amount of time before, during my stay, and after reading and researching. I even went to Durham to visit Cuthbert’s and Bede’s tombs. There is still something brewing but something needs to trigger it to make these ideas boil over onto a page. Sometimes this can happen by learning a new technique, or even sometimes the composition appears to me like a vision. It will come to fruition at some point so I don’t force it until I feel that divine strike of inspiration. And Lindisfarne is only one of the many places I have visited and researched – think about how many ideas there are bubbling in my brain!

What challenges did you experience during the creation of your work and how did you overcome them?
I never took my time in art school for granted and I took advantage of every facility I could, but I still don’t think anything could have prepared me for the challenges creating work post art school. First off, I had to drastically reduce the scale of my work. I became so used to printing 100 x 70cm prints with 25 layers for a ridiculously low cost price. I was shocked to find out how much working at this scale and complexity would cost once I graduated. Then you have other costs added on like where am I going to store these large scale prints? How much will it cost to frame them? How do I transport them to shows? A courier costs how much?? Even the luxury of having a studio space at university, somewhere to go and experiment, connect with other artists, that was ripped out from under me. I am extremely lucky to have a space now but it was challenging before to find somewhere suitable to sit down and draw.

I also found the lack of deadlines in my own practice a challenge. In art school, you are working towards your final year show. You have your blinkers on and all you can think about is this exhibition. You have all your deadlines in a big red marker in your diary. Then you graduate and think well I mean I could make new work or maybe I should just focus on the paid commissions. Maybe I should take on that extra shift at work. And then making your own work becomes less of a priority, especially when there is no necessary deadline for it. This has been a huge challenge for me the past year. I am trying to work out a better system of prioritising my own work and viewing it as equally important as a commissioned piece for someone else. Just because it is for my own practice does not mean it is any less urgent. But at the end of the day I have to be realistic about it as I discussed above, I need to cover the cost of production too.

Although this body of work might not be the biggest of quantity and scale, I am extremely proud to have created this much work post graduation. I have been extremely fortunate to be able to self fund my practice and create these pieces in between commissions, emails, applications, research, working, and just life in general.

What emotions or reactions do you hope viewers experience when they see your artwork?
I always want people to have a bit of a laugh at my work. I think that humour is an excellent way of being accessible. I want people to be able to view my work and not have to use all their brain power to figure out the concept behind it. 

To link it back to the historical references I use, they existed in a time where information being spread heavily depended on visual material. Majority of the population were illiterate and in order to spread information, illustrations were used. There is no need for language, making the information legible to everyone.

I use my practice as a way of sharing information that I have spent a lot of time and effort researching. I feel it almost as my duty to share this with a wider audience, to educate them on things I find important in history, and to inspire them to look to their own local area, or identity, or heritage and unearth stories that are important to them. I am extremely lucky to have a brain so interested in these topics and that it can translate it into images and present it visually. Everyone has a right to information/education and our world is designed in a way that can be challenging for some people to attain it fairly, so I hope I can put my abilities to good use and make it accessible. 

Will your next project be a continuation of your current style or are you experimenting with something different? Can you share a glimpse of your next project?
I think that my next project could be screen printed in my traditional style of bright neon colours and graphic black lines. I mentioned above that I am hoping to work on a new body of work around the Canterbury Tales, potentially creating a print per pilgrim story. But this would be a huge undertaking as there are like 25 stories? So I might just take my time with it and see where it goes.  I have also been trying to expand to other printmaking processes such as etching. I want to challenge myself to experiment more with tone and texture, and see what happens if I take colour out of my work completely. I have had two visions for etchings, both based on Arthurian Legends but we shall see how it goes. I know what I am like and I know how frustrated I will be if they aren’t perfect straight away but I think I just need to challenge myself to persevere. Etching could open up a whole new world for me. 

There are some embroidered pieces in this show and I would love to create some more textile works but it is extremely time consuming to create embroideries and it seems that the printmaking is more sought after for exhibitions and the likes. But I don’t think this should be a reason I don’t create textile works. I am trying to see if I can incorporate other processes and techniques to speed up the process. My next goal is to buy a sewing machine and experiment with appliqué, and using laser cutters to assist in the cutting of shapes. 

So who knows? My next project could be an etching, or a screen print, or maybe a full on textile banner. It is hard to know as I have too many ideas and not enough time to do them all. I am excited though as I feel like even being just one year post graduation that I have developed my practice so much. I am looking forward to putting all this new knowledge and skills into new works. 

Aoife Cawley’s solo show runs at Six Foot Gallery until 12th June 2025. See more of Aoife’s work over on Instagram or on her website.