sonia shiel
Sonia Shiel is an Irish visual artist, whose work spans painting, installation, script-writing, and performance. Her hyper-objects bear sentient qualities, and deliver shape-shifting, time-traveling forms of extraordinary encounter.
She is a Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, sponsored by Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin, and the Arts Council of Ireland.
Selected recent shows include the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2025); VISUAL, Carlow,(2024, 23); Kunstverein Aughrim (2023); Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin,(2023,21); and VOID, Derry (2019).
Shiel was awarded a full-membership studio from Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin, in 2022, and has received a number of Arts Council Project and Bursary awards, the Hennessy Craig and Tony O’Malley Awards for painting, Culture Ireland support, and other residency opportunities.
Her live events are often collaborative, generative, multi-disciplinary, and performance-based. Recent projects include the development and presentation of a series of Pulse Events at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios; an ongoing collaboration with Kunstverein Aughrim; and live technical performances at VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art.
Shiel has worked on other expansive projects including a residency at the UCD School of Drama; the NCAD Incubation Residency; and The Art and Law Fellowship Program.
She is a member of the research forum Justice in Fiction at UCD, and founding member of Round Table and Vase, a script and staging workshop for visual artists. She has produced a number of publications - with UCD, FOUR Gallery, Roscommon Arts Centre, and the RHA.
ISCP OPEN STUDIOS NEW YORK 04|26 PAGEANT | A BIO-DRAMA NEW YORK 4|26
IMMA SUMMER PERFORMANCE PROGRAM DUBLIN 07|26
CHERRY STREET PIER, PHILADELPHIA 08|26
KEVIN KAVANAGH GALLERY DUBLIN 10|26
DUBLIN GALLERY WEEKEND 11|26
HOUSE OF KUNST | KUNSTVEREIN AUGHRIM TBA|26
Born in Ireland in 1975. Sonia Shiel lives in Dublin. She holds a BA in Fine Art, from NCAD, Dublin; an MA in Visual Art Practice, from IADT, Dublin, and in her capacity as Artist in Residence, she completed the MA in Play-writing at UCD, Dublin.
Her work is held in various private and public collections, including: the Arts Council of Ireland; The Glucksman Collection; The Office of Public Works; Video Bureau, Beijing; Trinity College, Dublin; The City of Frankfurt; DLR Municipal Collection; and the CCI, Paris.
Evolving editions of her work feature in House of Kunst at Kunstverein Aughrim, and she is represented by the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery.