Casey Walshe – b. Dublin, 1988.
Casey Walshe is a trans masc visual artist based in Dublin. At present the motif of the flower is the starting point for their work, which is based in painting and sculpture. The artworks are love letters to, memories of, and portraits of lovers and friends. Casey’s recent paintings point back to earlier works about the brain and the heart and point forward to abstraction and self authorship. The paintings are love stories branching from the tradition of minimalist figurative abstraction.
In the process of making, pressing questions have emerged about queer desire, memory, fantasy and reality. Casey is now assembling their most autobiographical work, dealing with themes of discomfort, lust, growth, expansion and retraction – much like the cyclical stages of a flower.
Earlier works, which explored functionality and energy were made with the support of The Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, where Casey had access to heart and lung specimens. Emotion and the lived experience play a valuable part in the formal decisions of painting – the paint is applied carefully, delicately and slowly. Casey’s images consider ideas of arrangement and the point at which, through the process of interpretation and deconstruction, a form alludes to a story and becomes something it previously was not.
Casey Walshe studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. They have recently received The Next Generation Award from The Arts Council of Ireland 2022 and have been twice shortlisted for The Hennessy Craig Award 2022 and 2024. Previous solo exhibitions include TENDER at The RHA Gallery Dublin, 2023, Come on baby at Limerick City Gallery of Art 2023 and Beatland at Pallas Projects Dublin 2017. Previous group exhibitions include The Pleasure Ground at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin 2022, Paipear at Hang Tough Gallery, Dublin 2022, WE CAN DANCE, a site specific project in West Cork 2021, and ARTWORKS at Visual Carlow 2019. Their work has been purchased for Irish state collections including The OPW 2023 & 2017, Limerick City Gallery of Art 2023, Trinity College Dublin 2021, The Arts Council of Ireland 2020, The Royal College of Surgeons 2016 and The Central Bank 2010.