About me

Fidelma Sheridan is a full-time artist originally from Kilmaine Co.Mayo, who is now based in Dublin.

She graduated from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in 2005 with an honours degree in Textile design with a specialisation in embroidery.

With a successful degree show, Fidelma sold work to the OPW for the Department of Education and Science.

Several collaborative exhibitions followed over the past few years, such as Rhyme and Resin at the RHA, Dublin, as well as exhibtions in her own locality in Mayo.

Her first solo exhibition was held in the Bookcube gallery at the Rathmines bookshop. It was a showcase of Fidelma's most recent mixed media pieces.

Medium

I carry out a variety of techniques to achieve the qualities I desire in my work.

Most common materials used are inks, watercolours, pencil, threads, hand-dyed yarns and fabric, paper, bleach, paint, sewing machine and embellisher machine.

Fabrics which have been hand-dyed, bleached, layered and fused together. Manipulation techniques such as fraying, ripping and wire brushing to distress the fibres. Surfaces are built through layers of hand-stitch in a variety of scale and machine tension affects.

Most recently my work has progressed naturally onto high quality paper as a base, treated as if it were fabric, which gives the ability to stain and become vulnerable.

Inspiration:

I am fascinated by fleeting moments. For me beauty lies in the unplanned ordinary instances that can be captured and turned into extraordinary art. I treasure the enchanting ephemera of the everyday world that for most of us slips by unnoticed.

Inspired by these moments of great beauty and also by the fragility of existence and the erosion and eventual disappearance of our paths through life. My work symbolises many things - passing time, vulnerability frailty and decay.

The backdrops of my collages are formed by abstract washes layered with fading images of people from my past and present, crumbling surfaces collapse softly into nothingness, illuminated by flashes of explosive colour. Reminiscent of stained antique maps, faded and torn with use, yet quickened by the vibrancy of flickering city lights or a blazing summer sunset, my works seeks to capture an ethereal and dreamlike atmosphere.

My work is comprised of a series of delicate pieces, deliberately tattered and fatigued. It is as if they had been discovered moth-eaten in a dusty attic, reclaimed from another world, a secret place where time stands still and moments stay golden.