ISABEL NOLAN
born 1974, Dublin, Ireland

Isabel Nolan’s expansive practice unites sculpture, textile, painting, and drawing within a constellating model of artistic inquiry and meaning-making. Nolan is fascinated by the contingency of history and the intersubjectivity of human experience. Her subject matter is drawn from chance and cumulative encounters with a wide variety of sources, including historical records, hagiographies, literary and artistic traditions, and cosmological phenomena. The material scope and scale of her practice are similarly expansive, ranging from architectural sculptural bodies and monumental tapestries to colored pencil drawings and oil paintings on paper. Moving between intimacy and vastness, Nolan’s work reveals the strangeness and beauty of a shared existence within an inherently chaotic universe.

Isabel Nolan (born 1974, Dublin) received her BA in Fine Art and the History of Art from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and her MA in Visual Arts Practices from the Institute of Art, Design, and Technology, Dún Laoghaire. Recent solo exhibitions include 499 Seconds at Chateau La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France (2023); flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict at Void, Derry, Ireland (2022); and A delicate bond which is also a gap at Solstice Art Centre, Navan, Ireland (2021). Nolan was included in the 2025 Liverpool Biennial BEDROCK, presenting work at the Walker Art Gallery and an outdoor sculptural installation at the John Moores University.

Nolan’s work is included in the public collections of the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland; The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and Tate Britain, London, among others.

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