My not so secret agenda is one of love, magic, justice, beauty, mischief, and pleasure. Cultural theorist bell hooks writes, “What we cannot imagine, cannot come into being.” This is the ethos of my work. Through my practice I invoke futures where we are all liberated, Loved, and wholly resourced.

My work is playfully political, queer, feminist, and sex-positive. Audre Lorde’s essay, Uses of the  Erotic: The Erotic as Power, and Adrienne Maree Brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good are long-standing influences. My practice responds to kyriarchal systems that seek to separate bodies from spirit, and sexuality from divinity. Critic Aoife Banks describes the exhibition Cosmic Wetness, as embodying “a joyous, affecting congruence of feminine erotic pleasure and sensory knowledges.”

While I use a wide range of media, glass and sound are central to this endeavour. Glass holds light; sound carries vibration. Both speak the language of the mystical.

My artist coven includes Yoko Ono, Hilma af Klint, Leonora Carrington, Evie Hone, Sappho, Hildegard of Bingen, Constance Demby, Mariko Mori, Sinéad O’Connor, Sun Ra, Masaru Emoto, Princess Di, and Enya among others.

Bio

Karen Ní Dhomhnalláin (Karen Donnellan, she/they) is an artist and performer who works across sculpture, installation, language and music.

Their work has been exhibited internationally, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass and the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, where they presented their sixth solo exhibition Cosmic Wetness in 2023.

Their collaborative work with Suzanne Peck, Blow Harder: Alternative Lexicons for the Hotshop, was acquired by the Corning Museum of Glass in 2018 and featured in New Glass Now. A seminal work within the glass community, it is among the first glass-centered projects to intersect social practice and relational aesthetics. It reimagines studio language to build a more inclusive environment.

Under the moniker Cosmic Wetness, Karen performs and releases music spanning live sound baths and electronic sets, with appearances including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Smock Alley Theatre, All Together Now and Beyond the Pale. They are also a practitioner and teacher of several energy healing modalities.

Ní Dhomhnalláin is an active member of Aerach Aiteach Gaelach, a collective of Irish language artists and activists, and co-founder of Sligo Queer Shed. They founded Queercal Comhrá Shligigh, a monthly Irish language night for the LGBTQ+ community, and sit on Meitheal Téarmaíochta, a committee developing Irish language translations of LGBTQ+ terminology.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Design and an MFA, both with a specialisation in glass.