Associate Artists
Paul Bokslag
Visual Artist and Designer
Paul Bokslag is a visual artist and designer from the Netherlands, based in Callan, Co. Kilkenny. He was a co-founder of KCAT Arts Centre and was involved in starting Helium’s Creative Health Hub in Limerick in 2019.
He works across a range of media, from drawing, painting, printmaking, papercutting, photography and type design to sculpture and murals. He was a recipient of the 2011 Healthway International Arts and Health Fellowship with DADAA in Fremantle, Western Australia.
Paul is on the Butler Gallery Artists Panel and regularly facilitates workshops for Workhouse Union, Open Circle Arts and the National Design & Craft Gallery. He is passionate about participative and inclusive arts practice. He loves being immersed in a creative process and is always looking forward to sharing that with others.
Ana Colomer
Visual Artist
Ana Colomer is a visual artist based in Ennis Co. Clare. Ana works as a community artist and arts educator. She is a tutor for Creative Youth, LCETB, Creative Associate for Creative Schools, Arts Council, and for Helium as Associate Artist.
Ana’s creative practice includes painting, puppetry, animation, film, and multimedia installations that combine three or four elements.
Ana holds a Bachelor Degree in painting, H Dip and Art’s Therapy Foundation Certificate by CIT.
Sinéad Cullen
Visual Artist
Sinéad Cullen combines architecture, design, visual art and movement to explore how creativity supports change in our lives.
In her work she uses individual and participatory practices to support self-care, inquiry, exploration, connection and collaboration; combining drawing, painting, model making, installation, and mindful movement. Sinéad spent years living in ecovillages internationally and, in her work, explores how creativity and mindfulness inspire change in our lives and can support us to create regenerative ways of living.
She has a BSc in Architecture, an MSc in Architecture – Environment and energy studies, a Certificate in Creativity and Change from Crawford Art College and is a Qualified Movement Medicine teacher.
Sinéad lives in Allihies on the Beara peninsula where she swims all year round, cherishes the elemental wildness there, and loves rural community life.
Rachel Doolin
Visual Artist, Arts Facilitator and Project Designer
Rachel Doolin is a visual artist, arts facilitator and project designer based in the South of Ireland. She has been working in the realm of participatory arts since 2010. To date she has worked with a variety of persons from birth to adulthood in a diverse range of community, arts, health and educational contexts including higher level institutions and art galleries across Ireland. Doolin’s participatory arts practice is fundamentally rooted in collaboration. She works closely with young persons, adults, caregivers, artists and arts organisations, nurturing creative partnerships and absorbing the input and ideas integral to producing meaningful work that carefully considers the social and emotional landscape particular to each individual setting.
Chris Finnegan
Visual Artist & Arts Educator
Chris Finnegan is a visual artist and arts educator from Cork who works primarily through photography. His current practice centres on the home; critically interrogating ideas of home-making, childhood and the domestic sublime. He regularly collaborates with his young sons. In 2023 his photographic series House Rules was published by PhotoIreland as a TLP Edition.
Through his work as an art educator, Chris has provided exciting creative experiences for a wide range of participants in both traditional and digital photography as well as many other art forms and media. He is a qualified teacher of Art and Photography and experienced subject lead. He has assisted and facilitated workshops in The Ark Dublin, at The Red Stables St. Anne’s Park and with CoAction West Cork. Chris has curated exhibitions of work by young and emerging at The Mills Centre, London and The Highgate Festival 2018. He is an Associate Member with Sample Studios, Cork.
Emma Fisher
Puppeteer, Animator and Production Designer
Emma Fisher is a puppeteer, animator and production designer (for theatre and film). Emma has worked with children for 20 years in hospitals, schools, community centres etc. She started Beyond the Bark an inclusive puppet company that makes both theatre and film for all ages. Emma creates theatre for young audiences with Ceol Connected since 2014 with productions like The Far Field, Treehouse and Wunderground. Her film Marcach Dearg recently won best animated short at The Richard Harris International Film Festival 2021. She is delighted to be working with Helium again as an associate artist.
Luna Fox
Artist & Illustrator
Luna Fox is an artist and illustrator based in Cork City, Ireland. Born in Germany and raised in Spain, she brings a cross-cultural sensibility to her work, which centres on storytelling, nature, and the emotional landscape of childhood. She studied Printmaking at Limerick School of Art and Design before transitioning into illustration, largely self-taught through years of practice and personal projects.
Working with watercolours, gouache, paper scraps, inks, and coloured pencils, Luna creates hand-painted illustrations that blend gentle textures with poetic detail, evoking memory, belonging, transformation, and our connection to the natural world.
She has worked widely in educational and community settings across Cork, leading workshops that invite children and adults to create from a place of imagination and emotional truth. Her work has been exhibited locally and is held in private collections in Ireland and abroad. Luna is a certified TAP+ facilitator, a member of the Cork County Council Library and Arts Facilitator Panel, and author-illustrator of the short story The Nest (2022), featured in the Dublin Art Book Fair 2024. She works regularly as an illustrator for local and international publications.
https://luna-fox.com/
Sarah Fuller
Visual Artist & Puppeteer
Sarah Fuller is a visual artist and puppeteer and founding member of Dog and String Theatre.
She is committed to making work for children’s audiences in many forms and has years of experience working as an artist in schools and health care contexts with people of all ages and abilities. A large percentage of her practice is collaborative or involves a participatory process, incorporating, drawing, illustration, puppetry, animation, and storytelling.
She holds a BA, Hons. in Textile Design, Central St. Martins college of Art and Design, London and an MA in Visual Arts Practice, IADT, Dún Laoghaire. She is a Creative Associate with the Arts Council’s Creative Schools program and recently appointed Associate Artist with Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership.
Sinéad Geraghty
Artist & Educator
Sinéad Geraghty is an artist and educator with a passion for working with children and young adults within the community.
She graduated from the National College of Art and Design (2010) with a B.Des in Textile Design. During her studies she specialised in handwoven textiles and developed a skill for creating fabrics from natural fibres. Later, she completed an MA in Art and Design Education (2017), providing her with a strong foundation in both artistic practice and pedagogy.
With her diverse experience as an educator, Sinéad understands the importance of adapting her teaching methods to cater to a variety of learning styles and abilities.
Through facilitating collaborative and engaging workshops, she aims to empower young minds to explore creativity and discover the endless possibilities within the realm of the visual arts.
Niamh Gibbons
Artist
Niamh Gibbons is a socially engaged artist currently practising in Ireland. Her work
references a range of concepts which are often research based and site specific with a deep
basis in folklore, heritage and the rural. A native of Mayo, the artist’s work deals with themes of memory, fiction, storytelling and impermanence through the process of film, photography and installation.
A recurrent theme in both the artist’s social practice and visual arts practice is the connection to people and place. Whether gathering knowledge and stories through film or community engagement and events, the shared ingredient is people. Speaking through personal histories and heritage, work engages with ideologies of ecofeminism and food sovereignty.
Current practice looks at the local connection to land, rural knowledge , ecology and ideas of care. Here the artist aims to form a community around creative food sharing while raising awareness of topics such as food insecurity and environmental health.
As an artist facilitator, Niamh’s practice is particularly focused at present in arts and health and well being. Making and facilitating accessible and inclusive arts.
Niamh has many years experience in visual arts and culture , holding an honors degree in visual arts practice -I.A.D.T. and also studied Arts Facilitation at Crawford College of Art and Design , Cork 2018.
Recently completed a Masters in Art as Social Practice -MA Space , Limerick College of Art and Design.
Grace Haynes
Illustrator & Arts Facilitator
Grace Haynes is an Illustrator and arts facilitator who graduated from the University of Ulster. Grace’s work is inspired by the natural world and drawing on a love of nature. She is passionate about working and engaging young people in the arts.
Maria Hitchcox
Community Arts Facilitator
Maria Hitchcox is a community arts facilitator with over 30 years experience.
With a background in Special Needs and Early Childhood Education, and a Degree in Textile Design she is passionate about working with children and providing fun projects to meet the needs, interests and abilities of each child.
While raising her family, she founded Crazy Kids art club and also taught art with the Brothers of Charity.
In recent years, she has worked as an outreach arts facilitator for Galway County Council focusing on sustainability and biodiversity. In 2024 Maria created The Wishing Tree Project, where she sculpted a tree for the public to hang wishes as a way of gathering data. She also works with the HSE, OPW, Waterways Ireland, Irish Walled Towns Network, National Heritage Council and Creative Schools.
Maria has received two National Heritage Awards for her work involving Biodiversity and Inclusion in the community through art. These were awarded in the Wild Child and Inclusive categories.
Maria has recently started a residency as Artistic Director for Connemara Sea Week Festival.
Paola Invernizzi
Visual Artist
Paola Invernizzi is an Italian visual artist based in Dublin with a background in Arts and Health from the Brera Academy of Art, Milan. Her work bridges health, education, and community, using art to promote wellbeing and belonging.
Adopting a phenomenological approach and varied techniques, she fosters connections between people and art, aiming to extend these experiences to wider communities.
Since 2018, she has practised in Ireland, focusing on arts and health, education, and early childhood. She works in primary and secondary schools, collaborates with Mother Tongues, and in Arts and Health, partners with Waterford Healing Arts in psychiatry, is artist in residence at Tallaght University Hospital, and has recently joined Helium.
Ciara Keegan
Artist, Facilitator and Youth Worker
Ciara Keegan is an artist, facilitator and youth worker with a passion for working with young people through the arts. Ciara has led arts projects with children and young people in education and community contexts, working with organisations such as Finglas Youth Resource Centre, Teach Tearmainn and Refugee & Migrant Solidarity Ireland. Ciara recently completed an MA in Social Practice & The Creative Environment at Limerick School of Art & Design.
Niamh Lawlor
Artist, Performer, Filmmaker, Writer and Maker-Designer
Niamh Lawlor is an artist, performer, filmmaker, writer and maker-designer and a founder and Artistic Director of Púca Puppets since 1997. Her extensive experience with other companies includes The Ark, Ceol Connected and Anna Newell. As a participative artist she has worked for many years on panels for Dublin City and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Councils, The Irish Museum of Modern Art and Helium In Health. She worked on the latter’s Puppet Portal project in Temple St Hospital, and was a co-creater and performer of the Pop Up Picnic for very young children with complex needs, while her work with Púca includes over 100 performances of Tic Teac Tic Teac and her Béirín Beag Buí Films, winners of the 2014 and 2019 Dingle International Film Festival Físín Awards, are now available on RTE player.
Jinny Ly
Visual Artist
Jinny Ly is a Chinese-Vietnamese-American visual artist based in Dublin. Born and raised in California, she spent most of her time in Oakland Chinatown where her refugee family settled after fleeing the Vietnam War.
As a migrant and socially-engaged artist, Jinny’s fine art practice has a multilayered approach to exploring and visualising refugee familial narratives and history through the use of objects as witnesses, site-specific installation and applied materials. She also dedicates time as an arts facilitator for children and adults as an expansion of her practice. Her workshops explore textiles, sculpture, illustration, installation and other elements of visual art.
After receiving a BA in Studio Art from San Jose State University in California, in 2009, Jinny completed her MFA at NCAD in 2023, where she was selected as an RDS Visual Arts Award Exhibitor.
www.jinnyly.com
Carrie Lynam
Visual Artist
Carrie Lynam is a visual artist based in Kilkenny. Carrie has worked continuously in community arts since 2007 with a wide range of groups across many ages and contexts including museum gallery based, classroom, library, healthcare, local authority, festivals and community settings. Carrie was the National Coordinator of the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland’s flagship education program at Primary level, CRAFTed – Learning Skills for Life, for six years.
She graduated with a first-class honors degree in Fine Art from TU, Dublin and holds a Post Graduate Higher Diploma in Community Art Education from the National College of Art & Design (NCAD). She is currently studying for an MA in Design History and Material Culture at NCAD. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with work in the permanent collection of The National Museum of Scotland, and various private collections. Winner of The Progressive Vision Curtin O’Donoghue Emerging Photography Prize at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2020.
Katie Lynch
Visual Artist & Theatre Pracitioner
Katie Lynch is a visual artist and theatre practitioner from Athlone and based in Cork City. She graduated from Limerick School of Art & Design in 2023 with a BA in Fine Art Painting.
Her interdisciplinary work blends painting, performance and audiovisual media, drawing on Irish folklore, literature and local archival footage. Katie creates playful, surreal environments through scriptwriting, prop-making and improvisational workshops. Referencing amateur theatre, her work explores uncertainty, humour and transformation—often through characters caught in metaphorical storms.
https://youtube.com/@katielynch_art?si=k7cLxiOh120pjrYW
Shona MacGillivray
Visual Artist
Shona MacGillivray is a visual artist with over 20 years experience in arts and education and community arts.
Her practise includes painting, drawing , mixed media , moving image and animation.
She is passionate about nature, our environment and cultural heritage and enjoys skill and knowledge sharing.
Shona often collaborates with groups and individuals and believes in the many benefits that can be gained from creative exploration and play with materials and ideas.
Shona has a B.A Hons. degree from Glasgow School of Art and a Certificate in youth arts. She is a tutor for Creative Youth GRETB; the Artist in School and Embrace Arts and disability programme, Co. Clare Arts Office.
Molly Martin
Artist, Photographer, Facilitator
Molly Martin is an artist from Belfast who is empowered by the positive impacts of the arts in wellness, healthcare, activism and education. Molly is a facilitator of multi-disciplinary arts workshops which focus on the creative process of art-making rather than the product and highlights the championing of young voices and creativity in a playful, welcoming, collaborative and accessible safe space. She loves using inspiration from nature, encouraging freedom of experimentation and sensory experiences.
Molly is passionate about nature, socially engaged arts to create positive change, skill sharing, storytelling and community connection; often implementing elements of these in her workshops.
Molly’s own practice is based in photography, video, performance art, experimental audio and installation. Much of her work involves themes of the body, sensory limits and relationships with land and waterscapes. She graduated from Belfast School of Art in Photography With Video & International Studies from MOME Budapest and holds a certificate in Art Therapy Process from Cork MTU.
Molly’s work has been exhibited and awarded in Ulster Museum, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Golden Thread Gallery, Flax Studios, Source Magazine, Disability Arts Online and PS² Paragon Studios.
www.mollymartin.myportfolio.com
Etaoin Melville
Visual Artist
Etaoin Melville studied Visual Art on Sherkin Island (DIT); finishing in 2014. In her art practice and facilitation she works in a multidisciplinary fashion. Focusing on installation art, socially engaged art, video and crafts, using a medium that best represents the project at hand.
She has had the opportunity to work with a diversity of ages over the years since finishing
college. Over the last two years she has been facilitating classes in Mayfield Community
Centre, for all ages and abilities. This has been an enriching and rewarding experience.
She believes in an ethos of teaching where everyone in the class can learn from one another if they are given a safe space and an energised environment using art as a way to connect with others and to oneself on a path of personal growth and insight, in a playful environment.
Tom Meskell
Visual Artist
Tom Meskell is a professional artist for 30 years and over that time has developed a substantial catalogue of work in Ireland and abroad. Working within community contexts has profoundly influenced his core principals as an artist – namely that his work is authentic, celebratory and respectful of citizen participation. Tom’s work has allowed him to learn from the communities he has engaged with, which is continually enriching his practice. For years Tom has been exploring the capacity of translucent materials & illuminated forms as accessible materials to engage with communities to explore existential themes such as built heritage, citizenship, bereavement and memory.
Muireann Nic Caba
Visual Artist
Muireann Nic Caba is a creative, enthusiastic person with extensive workshop facilitation experience and a passion for sound art, moving image, & visual arts. Co-creating to express & explore meaningful themes with children and young people (combining sculpture, drawing, print, sound, video & interactive elements). Her artistic process is rooted in both her interests of innovative technology & the crossover with more traditional mediums.
Eilis O’Toole
Visual Artist & Facilitator
Eilis O’Toole is a visual artist, facilitator working in both education and health and community settings. She is living in West Waterford. She facilitates Art Kart in UHW as part of the Waterford Healing Arts Team, and delivers the Butler Gallery’s Early Years programme ‘PlaySpace’. She was awarded a YPCE Arts Council grant to support her work as an artist in a local community preschool.
Eilis has an established painting practice which is concerned with attention, and noticing moments in time. It is these landscapes and the relationship between the visual and emotional response, which concerns her. ‘I paint to explore these moments and my need for quiet and space to just be’.
She has a degree in Fine Art from NCAD and has completed both Arts in Group Facilitation and the Principles of Art Therapy Certificates from MTU Crawford.
Camille Peat
Visual Artist
Camille Peat is a visual artist and facilitator with a passion for inclusive arts practice and creativity & wellbeing. She works across a range of mediums from sculpture and installation to print and illustration.
Her practice focuses on process-based experimentation, exploring themes of metamorphosis, memory, perceptions of dream and everyday life, with particular interest on how these intersect with emotions and the body.
She has contributed to a number of projects and exhibitions in Ireland and abroad, such as Protézis at MAMŰ Galéria Budapest, In The Making: Navel at Pallas Projects/Studios and the Dublin Art Book Fair Fictions: The makings of other worlds.
She graduated from the Institute Of Art Design + Technology (IADT) with a BA Hons in Art, specialising in sculpture.
Agnieszka Radzewicz
Visual Artist & Graphic Designer
Agnieszka Radzewicz is a visual artist and experienced graphic designer with a background in teaching, having graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. Her education provided her with a rich and diverse artistic foundation, which she brings to everything she does.
With over 15 years of experience in graphic design and several years working as a Special Needs Assistant Agnieszka has developed a deep understanding of how to support and connect with young people. Her work in inclusive education has taught her the importance of celebrating each child’s individuality and adapting to their unique ways of learning and expressing themselves.
Driven by a love for travel and diverse cultures, she brings a broad, inventive approach to promoting creativity. Her greatest joy comes from watching children discover the magic within themselves. She’s committed to fostering an environment where every child can freely explore their talents, truly connect with their imagination, build relationships, confidence, and a lifelong love for art along the way.
Aideen Sweeney
Artist & Creative Facilitator
Aideen Sweeney is an Aritst and Creative Facilitator living in Clare.
She runs regular Expressive Painting Groups and Process-led Art Projects and Workshops for community groups and in local schools.
Inspired by the Natural World, Aideen works with seasonal themes and story, using materials gathered from Nature in her workshops. She guides participants to explore texture, colour, season and form, inviting a sense of belonging, connection, imagination and joy through tactile and inquiry- based art practices.
Aideen’s background is in Primary & Additional Needs Education, History, Yoga and Art Synthesis. As well as working for Helium Arts, she runs creative projects for Clare Education Centre, Ennis Voices for Autism and Clare Museum.
Website: https://fiveleavescreative.org/
Anna Walsh
Multi-Disciplinary Artist
Anna Walsh is a multi-disciplinary artist who finds joy in the process of art making. She loves to explore and work with natural materials, and found objects. She often draws inspiration from nature. Anna graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 2012 studying metalwork and completed a Master’s in Art Therapy with MTU in 2021. Anna is an advocate of the transformative power of creativity.
As both an artist and art therapist, Anna works with individuals facing diverse challenges,
believing in the ability of creativity to bring about transformative experiences. She creates
inclusive spaces where individuals can explore and nurture their creativity, gain confidence, and foster personal growth.
Anna actively engages in hobbies and pursuits that fuel her creativity and promote personal well-being. She loves gardening, nature exploration, walking, and hiking. She also loves yoga and meditation and has a genuine passion for sharing her love of creating and making and encourages others to embrace their creativity.