Lorna Corrigan is Artist-in-Residence for the month of September 2025, where she will develop a new body of work, inspired directly by the museum building, the Butler Gallery collection and her daily journey to and from the studio. An open studio event will be hosted following Lorna's residency, showing her artistic process and artworks in stages of development.

Lorna Corrigan’s Artist Residency was part of a supported, inclusive and accessible artist-led residency programme at Butler Gallery, where a selected artist from KCAT Arts Centre has the opportunity to develop a new or existing body of work in the museum context.

About the artist:

Lorna Corrigan has been a member of KCAT studio since 2004. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Galleria Art Kaarisilta Helsinki Finland, Art Brut Biennale Hengelo the Netherlands, Gallery Prabbeli Wiltz Luxembourg, Goetheanum Dornach Switzerland and Freight Gallery Fremantle Australia. She has also shown extensively in Ireland, including at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery Banbridge, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Riverbank Arts Centre Newbridge, Crawford Art Gallery Cork, Butler Gallery Kilkenny, Laois Arthouse and Jennings Gallery University College Cork. Lorna features alongside her KCAT colleagues in the documentary Living Colour (2011) by Wildfire Productions. Her work is also featured in several publications, including The Engagement Project KCAT 2014-2020 (2020), Perceptions: The Art of Citizenship (2016), Art & Inclusion: The Story of KCAT (2009), Visible Visions (2004), IWTK (2015) and the retrospective catalogue Lorna Corrigan (2023).

Not every artist can remember the very moment they decided they wanted to dedicate themselves to being an artist. Lorna Corrigan can. When she was a child of five years old she poured a can of red paint all over herself and over an old grey tractor on the family farm. Later that day, she was found asleep in a barn. Lorna’s art practice was born with attitude.

Lorna works primarily on paper and canvas with a range of media, including ink, acrylic and pastel. Many of her works depict memories of scenes and moments that have captivated her and the people and places closest to her heart. She also creates works that depict dreams she has had. Her stylistic approach has been highly influenced by the repeated patterns and motifs, distortion of scale and the vivid colours within aboriginal art. Also, as with the work of Aboriginal artists, Lorna’s imagery registers a profound connectivity she feels with particular places, people and the natural world. She has a persistent need to honour and reimagine things that otherwise might go unnoticed or uncommented on, from colours and shapes in the natural environment to arrangements of buildings, from gatherings of people to the characteristics of particular individuals.

Ultimately, Lorna’s beautifully abstract and colourful works are fuelled by a deep intolerance for seeing the world in mundane ways. For the rest of us, it is a gift to catch a glimpse of the world through the eyes and sensibility of a storyteller who sees with an extraordinary sense of wonder and celebration. She makes the beauty and dream-like quality of life visible, if we can open our eyes to see, if even for a moment.

Biography Text By Dominic Thorpe from 25 Year Studio publication 2025