Eilís OConnell was born in Derry in 1953. She studied at the Crawford School of Art in Cork from 1970 to 1974, at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston from 1974 to 1975 and again at Crawford School of Art from 1975 to 1977 where she received the only award for Distinction in Sculpture that year. Other awards followed, the G.P.A. Award for Emerging artists 1981, a fellowship at The British School at Rome 1983-1984 and a P.S.I. Fellowship for New York from the Irish Arts Council. While in New Yor
k she won a two-year residency at Delfina Studios in London and was based there until 2001. From her London base she exhibited widely and won many public art commissions mostly in the UK. She received the Art and Work award for her sculptures at 99 Bishopsgate from the Wapping Arts Trust, and in 1998 she won a Royal Society of Arts Award. She has represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1982 and the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1985. As child growing up in Donegal she was taken by her father to see the prehistoric ring fort known as Grianán of Aileach composed of four concentric stone walls. This place, and others like it she explained in 1993, 'Were my first experience of sculpture, although it was only translated as art in my final year at college.' Ireland's pre-Christian culture provides a way into understanding the work of Eilís OConnell. From childhood she was an avid collector of items, found objects which she later when on to incorporate in her work, drawing her inspiration and materials from equally eclectic means. While she has agreed much of her work derives its power from the strength and experience of the female body, O'Connell denies she has ever been specifically concerned with exploring female gender.
Her career to-date, in which she has successfully combined large-scale public commissions with smaller personal work. O'Connells exploration of material and form, like her interest in further engagement with new shapes, sizes, textures and methods, shows no sign of abating.
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