Majella Dowdican (b. 1987) is an Irish artist who has recently graduated with a First Class Honours in Fine Art from G.M.I.T. She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally.

Dowdican's work focuses on the notion of potentiality; potentiality both in terms of the semiotic possibilities that materials hold, and also, in terms of the anticipation created using such materials.

Many of the works confront the viewer, juxtaposing what might lie beyond and how the work may culminate, with the impossibility of ever being afforded witnessing such a scenario. Influenced by the text ‘Relational Aesthetics’ by Nicolas Bourriaud, many of the works are a counter re-action to the popularity of ‘relational art’, a way of engaging the viewer but never allowing for a physical inter-play to happen, opting rather for an imaginative encounter. The tenuous nature of much of the work creates a sense of anticipation, but also symbolizes our own precarious existence in the world.

In other works, however, it is materiality that takes precedence, creating quiet similes using objects leftover from our bureaucratic world. Looking at the influence context has on object, the artist presents the viewer with scenarios that are all at once factual and fictive, personal and universal.

What unifies the work as a whole is the play on artist-audience roles. Whether it is the intangibility of interacting with the work or being blatantly confronted by its fabrication, the viewer is made aware of their own presence, and thus, is jolted into a scene that is simultaneously intimate and unsettling.