Opportunity for artists to apply for prestigious RHA School Studio Award
This prestigious award provides one professional artist a funded studio space in the RHA for one year beginning at the end of October 2025.
The Fingal County Council Arts Office, in partnership with the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), have announced the return of the RHA School Studio Award. This prestigious award provides one professional artist a funded studio space in the RHA for one year beginning at the end of October 2025.
This award is open to professional practicing artists at all career stages working in Visual Art. To be eligible, applicants must have been born, have studied or currently reside in the Fingal administrative area.
The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Brian McDonagh said: “Fingal County Council in partnership with the RHA are delighted to see the return of this prestigious award. The award aims to develop an artist career and highlight excellence of art in Fingal.”
Fingal County Council Arts Officer Sarah O’Neil said: “This award provides a unique opportunity for recipients to immerse themselves within Ireland’s oldest artist-led visual arts institution, where art is created, exhibited, and debated. The RHA Studio is an ideal environment for artists to develop their practice and network with other artists.”
The RHA School is a purpose-built facility within the RHA Gallery consisting of individual studios, open plan drawing studios and a library. It is an artist-led space for the provision of skill-based learning in Visual Art.
Recipient of the RHA School Studio Award 2024, Eileen Leonard Sealy, has encouraged artists to apply: “Being awarded the Fingal RHA studio has enabled me to make the work for my first solo exhibition at The Lab Gallery, Dublin. The space allowed me to increase the scale of my work and set ambitious goals for the show. Being part of a vibrant community like the RHA with its galleries, school and varied programmes has been very beneficial to locating my work within a wider contemporary context.”
Artists wishing to be considered should apply by completing the application form on the RHA’s website www.rhagallery.ie
The closing date for applications is Tuesday 6th May 2025 at 4.00pm. Any questions or requests for further information, please contact: <span>[email protected]
For further information see https://www.fingal.ie/fingal-county-council-and-rha-studio-award
About the artist
Eileen Leonard Sealy is an artist living and working in Fingal, graduating from NCAD in 2023 with a Degree in Painting. Having previously worked as artist in residence in a natural burial ground in the Netherlands in 2020 for a five-month period and undertaking a research trip to the highlands of Sulawesi, Indonesia, funded by the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Award, Eileen's work strives to create visual narratives that forge similarities between commonly isolating human experiences.
Eileen’s work has been exhibited in group exhibitions including the RHA 194th and 193rd Annual Exhibitions (2024, 2023); ‘A Painting Show This Good Friday’, The Dean, Dublin (2024); ‘The ladder is always there’, with Shell/ter collective, Draiocht Gallery (2023); ‘Two women and a child in tears’, a duo show, College Lane Gallery, Dublin and has had work included in Racht, Hermans survey of Irish contemporary art, 2023.
She was shortlisted for the RCSI Award, and the Hennessy Craig Award/Homan Potterton Prize at the RHA, 2024, and she was a recipient of Fingal County Council Artists’ Support Scheme in 2024.
She was awarded the RHA School Studio Award in 2024 and used the space to work on her first solo exhibition held in The Lab Dublin on the 16th of January – 1st March 2025.