Karla-Louise Kirwan
she/her
What Grows After Goodbye
Karla-Louise’s work explores the intersection of domestic and organic spaces, drawing from the environments of her upbringing. Central to her practice are portals and windows, thresholds that speak to transition, absence, and return. These motifs echo the quiet movements between interior and exterior, visibility and obscurity, presence and loss.
Initially rooted in reflections on home and emigration, her practice has expanded into an abstract exploration of spatial and emotional impermanence. She is particularly drawn to buildings abandoned through migration, death, or time, and how nature slowly reclaims them. This quiet takeover becomes a metaphor for resilience and transformation, where decay coexists with renewal.
Through layered surfaces and shifting transparencies, Karla-Louise investigates the fragile states between memory and forgetting, structure and erosion, inviting viewers to consider how spaces live on, even in absence.
Teaching Placements
Loreto College, River Valley, Co. Dublin
Ardgillan Community College, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin
St. Joseph’s Secondary School, Rush, Co. Dublin