My name is Ailbhe Wheatley and I am a writer and visual artist based in East Clare.
My background in yoga teaching, literature and philosophy informs my artistic practice, which explores themes of interrelationship and embodiment.
Inspired by journeys both inner and outer, figures of speech and creatures of all kinds, my art reflects my love of play. It is influenced by my childhood growing up in the wilds of Ireland, and a series of adventures (and misadventures) whilst living abroad.
I am currently working on a collection of paintings, essays and poems centred around the heartspace — the quiet unknown that sits between mind and body, past and present, self and other, time and timelessness, becoming undone and being made whole. These ‘picture stories’ are observations of that eternal landscape – an inner, open field as imaginary and real as it is felt.
artist statement:
When I paint I am poised, swept into the colours, waiting for that tiny moment of affirmation when the world makes sense again. My visual practice is a way to reimagine an ideal. It is both in-between, best of both, but it is never too far away from it.
When I write, I am feeling it all, rummaging my way through a flurry of thoughts and feelings.
I write to release. I make art to step out of my current experience, if only very briefly.
The basis of my practice is storytelling. This is a multidimensional practice which incorporates poetry, drawing, movement, photography, performance and.. listening. It is, in its essence, a conversation with the world.
Creation becomes a means of peeling back the layers, an inner experience drawn through the imagination.
All is rooted in the wild - in the wild home of the heart, or the mystery of a feather.
CV
Ailbhe Alanna Wheatley
b. 1996, London U.K
currently based in rural Ireland
Contact
Email: ailbhewheatley96@hotmail.com
IG: @albalanna
Education
2022 - 2023: MA Authorial Illustration, Falmouth University (Distinction)
2015 - 2019: BA English Literature, Trinity College Dublin
Performances / Exhibitions
‘EVOLUTION’ solo fine art exhibition with Mountshannon Arts Festival
May/ June 2025
‘Em-BOG-iment’ film screening as part of Moving Earth, Interface Inagh, Connemara
June 2025
Featured poet for Poetry Day in collaboration with Poetry Ireland and Mountshannon Arts
May 2025
Artist in Residence Eramboo Artist Environment, Sydney New South Wales, Australia
December 2023.
Publications
Spring. Superpresent Magazine, June 2024.
https://indd.adobe.com/view/684b8db8-2938-4b3d-bcd1-7e597b74a384
Beating, Waking Up, Wholeness, Supported, Daydreams, Led by the Land.
Blaze Vox, Spring 2024.
Strangers. Alternate Route, Spring 2024.
https://www.alternateroute.org/zines/Alternate%20Route%20Issue%2013%20Spring%202024.pdf
I Can’t Grow A Poem, A Soft Landing, Ireland, Shadow. Disabled Tales, January 2024.
https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/i-cant-grow-a-poem-by-ailbhe-wheatley
Deep Rest. Last Leaves Magazine, October 2024.
https://www.lastleavesmag.com/_files/ugd/dccfc8_ccf9c63a610f4142a3426e58558fce3a.pdf
The Wandering Earth. Spellweaver Magazine, Autumn 2023.
https://www.spellweaverlit.com/order/p/spellweaver-2
The Earth Blob, 2021. Independently published and illustrated.
https://littledeercomics.ie/products/the-earth-blob
The Bog Beast, 2022. Independently published and illustrated.
https://littledeercomics.ie/products/the-bog-beast
ART AS HOPE
My hope is that through writing and art-making, I can provide a healing of sorts. Through these practices I seek to soften the gap between people, plants and creatures - to make this world a more open and comfortable place, if even for a moment.
I hope you find solace and safety here, or at least a sweet release.
I hope that we heal in togetherness - butterflies, birds, bees and trees (and of course you and I).
And I hope we can always remember the love that inhabits us, both inside and out - even when we cannot feel it, even when we are blind to it.. and even when we are hurting.
Above all I seek to magnify the everyday, ordinary, sublime..
to discover the world again.
