BIOGRAPHY

Paul Hallahan, Irish born, works at Fire Station Studios, Dublin. He paints, mostly. Sometimes sculpts, often turns to video. His thoughts wander—always back to the same place, to nature, to us tangled in it, trying to make sense. Art, he thinks, is what we leave behind, what nature might make of us when we’re gone.

The paintings, thin, layer upon layer, built up slowly, light seeping in, passing through. They change, they shift, refusing to stay still. This pleases him. He wants them to be restless, to draw the eye in, beyond what’s first seen, past the surface, into something more.

The videos, a single view, an idea stretched out, blurred at the edges. He likes it that way. The blur shows him more, somehow. The unclear, the unfocused—that’s where the truth lies, he thinks. Or something like it.

In 2009, with Waterford City Council, he set up Soma Contemporary, kept it going until 2012. Worked with many, near and far, artists and institutions alike. Exhibited here, there, and everywhere in the years that followed. In 2018, winning the Golden Fleece Award.