Joanna Kidney was born in Dublin and is based in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Her practice is one of sensemaking, a web of interrelated ideas around how complex yet tiny our lives are within the vast universe. It considers the non-material, that which is not visible and concrete. Her work offers open, poetic prompts towards ideas of holism, interconnectivity and temporality. Using a language of abstraction, it is an enquiry of the mark and the line through drawing, painting and installation works.
Selected Solo Exhibitions include: The LAB Gallery, Dublin (2022); West Cork Arts Centre, Uillinn (2018); Galway Arts Centre (2016); Mermaid Arts Centre, Co. Wicklow (2015) and Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2013).Her work has been exhibited in Group Exhibitions in the Painting Centre, New York;The European Central Bank, Germany; Gallerie HD Nick, France, Contemporary Art Space, Chester and venues in New Mexico and Virginia, USA.
She has been awarded a Cooper Foundation Grant (USA); Arts Council of Ireland and Wicklow County Council funding; an RHA Studio Award; a Ballinglen Arts Foundation Fellowship and a DIT Award of Excellence. International residencies Kiðjaberg, Iceland and Brigham Young University, Utah. Her collaborative practice includes mergeemerge, a collaborative drawing project with Michael Geddis (2016- 2022); Place|Lab Collective, 17 artists from USA, UK and Ireland (2019- to date); Skimming Stones, a collaborative video work with dance artist Liadain Herriott (2015-2016); Hexagon, a collaborative printmaking project in Cork Printmakers, Cork (2014) and The Tellurometer Project, a collaborative collective of 8 Irish artist. She was a founding member of Outpost Artists Studios, Bray, Co. Wicklow (2014).
Her work is in the collections of Allied Irish Banks; The Ballinglen Museum of Art; The Central Bank of Ireland; Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland; Fleschmann Hilliard PR; Lee Hotels; O’Connor Sutton Cronin Engineering; Office of Public Works, Ireland; University College Dublin and Wicklow County Council. Private collections in Ireland, USA, UK, Spain, France.