RÓNÁN Ó RAGHALLAIGH

 Druid Trance 1, 2021 (film still)

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Rónán Ó Raghallaigh’s art is steeped in pre-Christian spiritual practice. On Bealtaine 2021, he held a family ceremony and was re-baptised as a druid, taking on the original Irish version of his name. His work is a continuous act of personal decolonisation through the assumption of a druidic identity- a transformation which is often experimental and intuitive.

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Rónán works primarily with painting and performance informed by research of folklore, archaeology, and postcolonial theory. His practice embraces the artist as a channeller of the spirit world or the unconscious, referencing Modern art movements as well as intercultural religion and traditional Irish cultivations of divine inspiration, or ‘Imbas’

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As part of his personal spirituality, Rónán meditates and induces trance-like states which produce inner imagery. These sessions take place at sacred sites as well as at home, and the imagery experienced is usually influenced by place, particular mythic narratives or particular times such as the solar Irish festivals. 

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His paintings interweave these meditation experiences with Irish mythology, history, folk customs and his own imagination. Rónán also hosts these meditations as performative rituals in which he channels imagery and immediately draws or paints it. These performances take place in gallery settings as well as religious and historical sites.

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Through these various processes, Rónán’s work invites a space for remembering, reinterpreting and celebrating Irish folk spirituality, and considering it as a way of being in the contemporary world. 

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