Siofra Egan
Síofra Egan is a visual artist based in Dublin. She graduated from the National College of Art and Design with a degree in Fine Art Sculpture and Expanded practice in 2024. Central to Síofra’s practice is an exploration into the nuanced qualities of the Irish language which serves as a rich foundation for investigations into identity, mistranslation/misrepresentation, slippage and power dynamics. This preoccupation has led to an exploration of the dichotomy of presence and absence, exploring the deceptive neutrality of the "view from nowhere" and the violence inherent in aerial perspectives, particularly in the context of modern warfare and internet dynamics. Inspired by the writing of Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl she applies a feminist, sci-fi lens to challenges traditional hierarchies of media and image quality. Recent exhibitions and projects include, Muine Bheag COMMUNE programme Graduate-in- residency (August 2024), Irish Art Review Featured Graduate (Autumn 2024 edition), NCAD Degree show (June 2024)
This Is An Unsupported File Format, 2024, image transfer on cotton, bar, foam Quilt dimensions - 90 x 470 cm Quilt weight- approx 2.5kg Price- €1000
This artwork, draws deeply from the aesthetics of both digital imagery and traditional textile craft, merging the two into a striking exploration of resence, absence, and the overwhelming nature of our interactions with digital media. The quilt’s initial form—structured with repeating, uniform squares—resembles the pixelated patterns of low-bit images. This rigid uniformity, however, is disrupted through the layering and sewing of additional patches, creating a complex and fractured surface reminiscent of a chaotic computer screen cluttered with multiple windows and popups.
As one navigates the quilt, various motifs of swarms emerge, hinting at themes of haptics, power dynamics, and collective gaze. The swarm symbolises both the overwhelming mass of digital imagery we are confronted with and the energy of collective action, evoking a spirit of protest. Hundreds of images, printed and transferred onto fabric, cover the quilt, coexisting with large white, "blank" spaces. These stark contrasts explore the tension between resence and absence —what is seen, what is hidden, what demands attention, and what goes unnoticed.
The images on the quilt exist on multiple cales and across different textiles, ranging from crisp, clear visuals to fragmented, illegible forms. This layering of legibility reflects both the internet's chaotic nature—where coherent information and incomprehensible noise coexist—and the nature of "poor" digital images, which blur the boundaries of visibility. The repetitive reformatting and circulation of images evoke the endless echo chamber of the digital world, where images are constantly decontextualised, distorted, and reinterpreted.
The quilt becomes a visual metaphor for navigating digital space—an overwhelming sensory experience that speaks to the complexities of modern media, protest, and the mediation of digital images in a hyperconnected world.
Bìonn An Bheirt Acu Ag Ithe As Béal a Chéile, 2024, image transfer on cotton, 40 x 70 cm Weight- 300 grams Price - €500
This quilt is a rich, tactile expression of disruption and transformation. Its design emerges from a series of torn, fragmented scraps— images that have been repeatedly reuploaded, reformatted, edited, and ripped apart. These "poor images" resist the polish and clarity of high-resolution, commercial digital media, instead embracing a blurred, subversive aesthetic. Their hazy, low-quality nature reflects their marginalisation, embodying an invisible, lived reality that resists the ease and privilege associated with sharp, pristine imagery.
The quilt mirrors its own chaotic contents through its construction. The act of quilting becomes a metaphor for the digital hacking process —cutting, reassembling, and remixing these scraps into something new. Each stitch, each piece of fabric, echoes the manipulation and distortion of images in the digital realm. The quilt's swarm motif amplifies this sense of movement, flux, and multiplicity, showing that digital media is not ephemeral but deeply material, full of labor and meaning.
By choosing quilting as the medium, the work juxtaposes the "flatness" of digital promises with the weighty, tactile presence of the handmade. The quilt embodies a refusal to conform to the flattening and standardisation of high-resolution visuals, instead embracing the imperfect, the messy, and the subversive potential of poor images. It is a celebration of their resilience and their ability to persist outside of conventional frameworks.
Danger Afoot, 2024, image transfer on cotton, 40 x 60 cm weight- 200 grams price - €300
The piece explores the tension between digital and material worlds, translating the ephemeral, easily reproduced nature of digital memes into the labor-intensive, physical medium of quilting. This shift highlights the juxtaposition between the fleeting, transient nature of internet culture and the permanence of traditional craft. In doing so, the tapestry critiques how content is consumed and shared in our digital age—quickly, superficially, and often out of context—while also pointing to the deeper histories and efforts behind these processes.
Humour serves as a form of resistance in this work, poking fun at the seriousness of high culture and disrupting traditional boundaries of art and craft. Through subversive imagery and absurd juxtapositions, the tapestry comments on the flattening of information in digital spaces and the ways memes circulate, evolve, and gain power through repetition and distortion. The motifs, which could range from ironic gestures to internet tropes, point to the way meme culture has transformed how we communicate, expressing complex ideas in simple, humorous ways.