Yvette Monahan is an Irish research-based photographer and artist.
Yvette explores how external and internal landscapes could hold intangible concepts such as history, memory, mythology, resonance, transcendence, and trauma. She uses different photographic methods within her practice, including film and digital photography, alongside alternative processes such as lumen printing, negative drawing, and print intervention.
Yvette's work has been exhibited extensively since graduating with an MFA in Photography in 2013. The many exhibitions and publications include the TULCA, Winter Papers, PhotoIreland, Belfast Photo Festival, Belfast Exposed, Unseen Amsterdam, Fotohof Salzburg, and Lishui Festival, China. Yvette has been nominated twice for the Prix Pictet.
Since 2022, Yvette has exhibited work in two extensive survey shows at Photomuseum Ireland and PhotoIreland—both public-facing events of Ireland's most important photographic practices. Photomuseum Ireland has since acquired her work as part of The National Photography Collection.
Yvette has been the Photography curator for the Cairde Sligo Arts Festival since 2021. Yvette was a lecturer in photography at Ulster University from 2021 to 2023.
Yvette holds an MFA in Photography (2013) from the Ulster University, Belfast, and an MA in Geography and Economics (1999) from Trinity College Dublin. In 2020, she completed a diploma in Art and Design at National College of Art and Design.
Awards
2022 Arts Council Agility Award recipient
2022 National Photography Collection - Photo Museum Ireland
2021 Artists commission - Hapax magazine
2020 Cowhouse summer residency
2020 Joya Air Residency, Andalusia
2019 Futures Artist, Unseen Amsterdam. Selected by PhotoIreland
2019 Matera European Photography /Visions from Europe - Irish representative
2018 Zurich Portrait prize, shortlisted
2016 Savills Art prize, nomination
2016 Prix Pictet SPACE, nomination
2016 New Irish Works - selected artist
2015 Solas Ireland Award winner, Gallery of Photography and Source
2015 Emerging Irish Artist Award, Burren College of Art, The Burren, Co. Clare
2015 Prix Pictet DISORDER, nomination
2014 Plat (t) form 2015 at Fotomuseum Winterthur, nomination
2014 MACK First Book Award – Nominated by Christiane Monarchi of Photomonitor, UK
2013 Magnum Foundation/Atlantic Philanthropies – One of six photographers chosen in Ireland for legacy project
2013 Winner PhotoIreland Portfolio Award
2013 Winner Slideluck Potshow, Dublin
2013 Source Photographic Review’s showcase - selected by Sean Kissane, exhibition curator at IMMA, as emerging photographic talent from MA courses across Ireland and the UK.
Selected Exhibitions
2024 Changing States: Ireland In The 21st Century
Contemporary Photography from Ireland Haus Am Kleistpark, Berlin
2022 In Our Own Image: The Politics of Place - Photo Museum Ireland
2022 Curator and Artist - Transcendent Documents - Cairde Sligo Arts Festival
2022 Opening the Gates - Images Are All We Have - Photolreland Festival
2022 National Photography Collection Inaugural Exhibition - Photo Museum Ireland
2021/2022 A creatures great and small- OPW- Limerick.Dublin.Antrim.Down
2021 Curator and Artist - Far In Far Out - Cairde Sligo Arts Festival
2021 Versus -'image a venir L'enfant Sauvage - Belgium
2020 Octopolis Belfast Photo Festival
2020 Highlanes Open Submission
2019 The thousand year old boy, Lishui Photography Festival, China
2019 Matera European Photography /Canon Europe Visions from Europe
2019 The Invention of memory, Rathfarnham castle, PhotoIreland
2019 The thousand year old boy, Format Festival Derby, UK
2018 National Portrait Prize - shortlist, National Gallery Dublin
2018 Encountering the Land, VISUAL, Carlow
2018 Beyond View: Ten Years of Photography at UU, Belfast Exposed
2017 Beyond the ninth wave, TULCA, Galway
2017 RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin
2017 The thousand year old boy, Photo 50 at The London Art Fair
2016 The thousand year old boy, RHA VUE National Contemporary Art Fair
2016 The thousand year old boy, Belfast Exposed Futures show
2016 The thousand year old boy PhotoLondon, Peckham 24, Belfast Exposed Futures
2016 The thousand year old boy Solas Awards exhibition at FOTOHOF, Salzburg.
2016 RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin
2015 The thousand year old boy Solas Awards exhibition at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin.
2015 The thousand year old boy Belfast Photo Festival
2015 Fraction of a second exhibition, University of New Mexico Art Museum, USA
2015 The thousand year old boy RHA Annual Summer Show, Dublin
2015 The thousand year old boy Remote Photo Festival, Donegal
2014 The time of dreaming the world awake, Solo show, The Copper House Gallery, Dublin
2014 The time of dreaming the world awake Skibbereen Arts Festival, Cork
2014 Belfast School of Art Show, Backlight Photofestival, Tampere, Finland
2014 Supernatural, Quad Derby, UK
2014 UU/Yale show, Belfast
2014 The time of dreaming the world awake Circulations Festival, Paris
2013 RHA Annual Exhibition, Dublin
2013 MFA graduate show, South Studios, Dublin
2013 New Irish Works, PhotoIreland, Tactic, Cork
2013 Open Submission, Belfast Photo Festival
2013 Belfast MFA graduate show, University of Ulster, Belfast
2013 A Year in Development, Four Corners Gallery, London