04/06/2026
Ciara Richardson is an Irish photographer working with collage, fine art, and sculptural photography, alongside experimentation across media. Their practice explores social issues and how they shape human emotion and behaviour, with a strong focus on materiality and recontextualisation. Collaboration is central, using photography as a participatory, investigative tool. Through layered, experimental processes, they create accessible visual narratives that encourage critical engagement.
‘How would you like it to happen to you?’ critiques the persistence of traditional gender stereotypes in contemporary media by subverting the male gaze and questioning dynamics of power, visibility, and objectification. Using found online imagery, the artist transforms flat photographs into interactive, three-dimensional sculptural forms through photomontage and mechanical processes. Challenging historical portrayals of men as active subjects and women as passive objects, the work fragments and reassembles the male body to expose vulnerability and insecurity. Influenced by Dadaist ideas, it creates tension between surface and volume while reconsidering how bodies are constructed, viewed, and valued.
[In this series of posts, we introduce you to the artists featured in the ‘New Irish Works 2026’ exhibition at the International Centre for the Image, running until 9 August 2026.]
Find out more at image.museum or through the link in bio.
Image Credit: Brian Cregan
