Crawford's class of 2026: Profiles of three new graduates of the Cork art college
(Clockwise, from top left) Crawford College of Art and Design graduates Anne Marie Roche, Ezra Williams and Harrison Connally.
Anne Marie Roche, from Vicarstown, Co Cork, is one of those who initially pursued an entirely different career. “I was always interested in art,” she says, “but after school, I studied business information systems and I went on to work in that area.
"It was only during covid that I got back into making art. Then I started a PLC course in art at Tramore Road in 2021, and I was there for two years before I came into second year at the Crawford.”
Roche’s work is largely inspired by her rural background. “I grew up on a farm, and I’ve lived at home for the most part while I’ve been at college. I’m drawn to the stuff I see around me. The texture of corrugated iron, for instance; that was something I wanted to recreate in my work.
“For the Degree Show, I’ve brought in found objects from around the farm. Things like funnels, pipes and drums. I’ve always been interested in sculpture, and farm objects can be very sculptural. But I’m really more of a painter. Painting is instant, it’s a medium you can create whatever you want in.”
Throughout her time in college, Roche has continued working part-time, testing automation for a software company. “I expect to go back full-time over the summer,” she says. “But I hope to balance that with making art. There are sheds on the farm that I can make work in, and I’ll be applying for residencies as well.
“The five years I’ve spent studying art in Cork was a great way to expose myself to everything going on in the city. I’ve learned so much from my teachers and technicians, and my class have been a lot of fun, we’ve got along really well. We’re all going on into different areas now, but hopefully some of us will work together in the future.”
Harrison Connally is another who came to art as a second career, having worked as a graphic designer for 18 years before enrolling at the Crawford to develop his interest in sculpture. His large-scale artworks are made from botanical materials and reflect on his relationship with nature, and particularly on his experience of living off-grid for two years in his native Texas.
“My grandmother had a large property,” he explains, “and after my grandfather died, I moved in with her for a time. It's great to be single, living with your grandmother, but then I got into a serious relationship and we planned on getting married, and you don't want to be newlyweds living with grandmother.
"So my wife and I bought a yurt. It was very much an experiment to live like that, to be elsewhere on my grandmother’s property, but still in close proximity. We could have our privacy, but we could also help take care of her.”
He has many cherished memories of those two years. One night, for instance, while his wife was away on an artist’s residency, he felt something stirring under the yurt, and worried that a raccoon or a possum might be trying to chew its way in.
“But it turned out to be a family of five grey foxes. For the rest of the summer, they lived beneath me, and every time I'd sit out in the yard, they would come out and lay in the grass next to me. They weren't pets, they were very much wild animals, and those moments felt almost supernatural.”
Connally took up woodworking as a hobby in that period. He loved working with his hands, and when his grandmother grew older, and other relatives took over her care, he began to consider a career in art. He and his wife had visited Ireland on a series of extended holidays, and eventually they moved to Cork so he could pursue a degree at the Crawford.
“It was my first time venturing into the industry of fine art expression,” he says. “The programme offered me the chance to establish a depth of conceptual knowledge, which is something I would not have found in a forest in Texas.”
Now that he has finished college, Connally and his wife hope to secure Irish citizenship. In the meantime, he is applying for every opportunity available to a working artist. “My big hope is to get a studio space,” he says, “so I can go on making large scale work, and maybe even go a little bigger.”
For Ezra Williams, who always felt out of sync with conventional education, art college has proved to be a highly productive experience.
“I dropped out of school at 15,” she says. “I have autism and ADHD, and it just didn’t suit me. I’ve never been academic, so my parents let me leave. I’m from Greystones, Co Wicklow, and eventually I did a PLC in art in Stillorgan. I loved ceramics especially, and when I started looking at colleges where I could study it further, I settled on the Crawford. It was only when I started that I got more into textiles. I’ve learned a lot of new skills. I also work with glass.”
Williams is an accomplished musician, whose songwriting and recording is just as important to her as her visual artwork. “I play guitar and sing,” she says. “I make indie pop type music, you can hear it online at Spotify and Apple Music. And I’ve just finished an album called which I plan to release over the summer.”
Williams has combined her interests in music and visual art for the Degree Show. “I’ve made looping visualisers for three of the songs on the album, making animations of my needle felting, sewing and knitting. One of the songs is about mental health issues, another about being afraid of intimacy, and the third is about the feeling of being free from past mistakes.”
Now that she has finished college, Williams plans on moving back to Wicklow. “For now anyway,” she says. “There are more opportunities to play gigs around Dublin, and most of my band live there anyway.
"I plan on making visualisers for all the songs on my album, and I’ll release them one at a time, starting with a song called Blight. Then I’ll release the album, and hopefully I’ll tour it.
“I’ve love to do the whole thing as an exhibition as well, with the music and the animations. We’ll see what happens.”
- Second-hand Smoke, the MTU Crawford College of Art & Design Graduate Exhibition 2026, runs from June 5–11. See crawford.mtu.ie
