Isabel English is the new resident of BoSA - Briefing on Soft Arts project. She is a visual artist and educator from Cork, Ireland. Her practice combines photography, textiles, and sculpture, drawing on the literary genre of autofiction to create contextually sensitive installations. She describes autofiction as “a shield, a type of representational gauze or armour, [that] acts as a layer upon which intimacies and vulnerabilities can be tried but not proven true or false. This refuge is where my practice exists, proposing these through a sensitive arrangement of objects, both found and fabricated.”
In her current research, Isabel references two works: The Deep North by Fanny Howe and A Manual of Artistic Anatomy by C. L. Sparkes. She reconfigures and restructures the images and language of these texts, using them as source material to inform her making.
During the residency, Isabel will engage with the archive at CIMO to explore the relationship between form, the body, and material. In particular, she will consider the relationship between text and textile as a method for uncovering intimacies, subjectivities, and the psychologies of personhood.
As part of the residency Isabel English will do an artist talk on Thursday 10/9, 7 pm at CIMO.
Isabel English is a visual artist and educator from Cork, Ireland. In 2023, Isabel took part in the show Fly Floor - an exhibition in association with the Irish Tour of Ireland at Venice - curated by Mark O’Gorman and Niamh O’Malley. In 2024, she was awarded the inaugural Emerging Visual Artist Award from Cork County Council, which concluded in September 2025 with the solo exhibition first-person at LHQ Gallery. This body of work was also exhibited in GOMA, Waterford as a solo show later in 2025. Alongside these exhibitions, she produced the publication first-person with texts from Sarah Long and Julie Morrissy. Forthcoming exhibitions include a group show at Lismore Castle Arts with Liliane Puthod and Sibyl Montague (October 2026), an exhibition in Studio 1 at Temple Bar Gallery (October 2026) and a solo exhibition at the RCC Letterkenny (2028) curated by Mark O’Gorman.
More info: https://isabelenglish.net/home
The residency is supported by: City Office for Culture and Civil Society, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Kultura Nova Foundation
