Cristín Leach is one of Ireland’s leading art critics. A bestselling author and broadcaster, she is a Doctoral Candidate at TU Dublin for a PhD by Prior Publications in the Centre for Socially Engaged Practice-Based Research (SEPR). She holds a Bachelor of Arts from University College Cork and a Masters of Arts in Journalism from Dublin City University.
Her art criticism has been published in The Sunday Times Ireland since 2003, and she has worked as an art critic in print, TV, radio, and digital media since 1998. Her writing on art has also been published in Irish Arts Review, Circa Magazine, and by the Irish national public service broadcaster at RTÉ.ie. Her memoir Negative Space was published by Merrion Press in 2022.
In 2020, she presented Ireland Portrayed, a four-part radio documentary series for RTÉ Lyric FM, which explored ways in which Ireland and Irish identity have been represented in art since the 1700s. Through the Canvas, which she co-presented for RTÉ Lyric FM, won silver at the New York Festivals Awards and was shortlisted for the 2019 Prix Marulić International Radio Festival in Croatia. In 2019, she curated the 21st Century Ireland in 21 Artworks exhibition for the Earagail Arts Festival in Donegal, based on a series of articles she wrote for RTÉ.ie in 2017.
She has written essays for artist catalogues, arts organisations, and public and corporate collection publications. She has been a guest or visiting lecturer in critical journalism, art writing, and cultural criticism at Limerick School of Art and Design (MA Social Practice and the Creative Environment), University College Dublin (MA Art History, Collections and Curating) and University of Limerick World Academy (MA Festival Arts).
Since 2011, she has delivered public talks and hosted and participated in symposia and panel discussions on art and the role of the critic and criticism including: Art Criticism Now (The Lab, Dublin, 2011), The Role of the Critic (The View, RTÉ Television, 2011), Doubt and Visual Representation (MA in Modern and Contemporary Art Symposium, UCC, 2013), Critical Writing: Future Modes of Engagement (Visual Artists Ireland and AICA Ireland at the National College of Art and Design, 2013), The Value of Criticism (Glucksman Gallery, UCC, 2016), Arts Broadcasting in Ireland (Limerick Media and Arts Conference, 2016), Everyone’s a Critic (RTÉ Cruinniú na Casca, Dublin Castle, 2017), Where Are The Critics? (Limerick Media and Arts Conference, 2021).
Her short fiction and creative non-fiction have been published in Winter Papers 3, 5 and 7 and broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1. She was Writer in Residence for the Hearsay International Audio Arts Festival in 2021. Her second book, From Ten till Dusk – A Portrait of the RHA in 12 Stories, will be published in Summer 2023.
Since 2021, she has been President of the AICA Ireland, the Irish national section of the International Association of Art Critics / l’Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art. Her critical practice focuses on the moment of engagement and employs journalism methodologies to publish and broadcast in media environments where the audience is “the general public”.
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