(l) Paddy Kelly, Winter 2011

The ARCH Artist in Residency Program is an opportunity for artist to pursue thoroughly their creative project amid DC’s vibrant and diverse urban environment. Residencies are offered; spring, summer and fall. The residencies are approximately 8 weeks long. Each artist will work closely the creative staff at Honfleur Gallery and the Gallery at Vivid Solutions to determine the parameters of the residency and needs of the artist in advance of their arrival. These parameters will focus primarily on the details of the artists’ project, but are also about how to best connect to the local community, foster dynamic interaction and develop exposure to the resources of the greater DC cultural community. The program will offer free housing and free shared workspace to participating artists.

ARCH is pleased to be working in partnership with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Golden Thread Gallery on its winter/spring residency and welcomes Johanna Leech, Lesley Cherry, and Sinead Breathnach-Cashel for Spring 2012.

Johanna Leech was born in 1985 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She received a BA Hons in Fine and Applied Art at the University of Ulster in 2007. Leech has an ARCH Artist in Residency in Feb - April 2012 in Washington DC, USA.  She has had a residency for The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SÍM) in March 2008 in Reykjavík, and for residence SHAC in 2009 in Belfast.

Leech was a member of Belfast Exposed Gallery’s Youth Forum ‘BXY’ 2006-2008.  Taking part in exhibitions and ran workshops for the 2008 Liverpool biennial of Art.  She was a co-director of Catalyst Arts Gallery 2007-2009. She worked for The International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA) in 2008 & 2009. Leech took a travel and research break in 2009-2011, traveling throughout Australia & New Zealand.  Gathering research, stories and images for future artworks.

With a passion for historic and modern buildings, she has volunteered in Open House Melbourne in 2010 and in Dublin 2011.

Leech currently lives in Belfast with a studio at Flaxart Studios.  She works as a Late Night Art Tour Guide for the Belfast City Council, and as a workshop coordinator for Vision Exposed/Belfast Photo Festival.  She is on the Catalyst Arts Archival Committee. 

Lesley Cherry is an experienced visual and public artist, working with diverse challenging communities, addressing post ceasefire art in Northern Ireland.  She completed her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Ulster in 2011 and was awarded Arts Council of NI, Individual Artist Awards in 2011 and 2005. She also received a Tyrone Guthrie Residency Bursary in 2007 and the Palmolive Parisian Design Award in 1998. Her recent video and installation work has been shown at The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, The Void, Derry and was selected for the ‘Here and Now’ exhibition at Artslink, Donegal. Her video ‘White Leather Sofa’ was selected for the ‘Contemporary Art and the Moving Image’ screening at the Queens’s University Film Theatre, Belfast in 2011. She has also completed several large-scale public art commissions through the Arts Council of Northern Irelands, Re-imaging fund and her work is included in several public and private collections throughout Europe, Australia and Central America. Cherry was a founding member, curator and director of the Hedge Art Space between 2003 and 2009 and is currently a member and past director of Creative Exchange Artists Studios, based in East Belfast.

Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell is an artist based in Northern Ireland. Her work is generated by a direct response to and observations from her surroundings and their social contexts. This kaleidoscopic practice includes interactive installations; collaborations; drawing; performance, workshops and curating. She has participated in artist exchanges in Canada, Chile, China, Iceland, Ireland, the UK and Uruguay. She also works collaboratively with Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell as organiser and co-curator of Residence - a rolling program of artist residencies, exhibitions and outreach work in domestic spaces; Sinéad is administrator, SOURCE the Photographic Review and Chair of live art organisation BBeyond.

For more information visit: www.uncertainremains.wordpress.com 

The ARCH Artist in Residency Program is funded, in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Please stay posted to the residency page for openings in 2012.