Arlene Caffrey

Amongst many things, Arlene Caffrey is a Kilkenny-based visual artist, dance artist and adult educator. Working across the media of performance, sculpture and the written word, her practice is informed by feminine subjectivity and feminist epistemology, as well as a dash of existential dread and a fondness for Flann O’Brien.

Since graduating from the Dublin Institute of Technology in 2009 with a degree in Visual Communications, Arlene has been working as a dance teacher, creating and performing socially engaged artworks through the medium of pole dance and writing.

In her career as a dance artist, Arlene has been successfully shoe-horning into every discussion of her career that the highlight so far has been performing live in Belfast with Snoop Dogg as part of his ‘I Wanna Thank Me Tour’ in March 2023.

A recent graduate of the MA Fine Art program in 2023 at Limerick School Of Art & Design, her current research-led practice is inspired by the exploration of embodied experience, identity and autotheory, underpinned by the Deleuzian concept of ‘becoming-woman’ as a conceptual framework. Arlene aims to continue making experimental enquiries of durational live performance and sculptural works, with resulting performative works in moving image, lens based media and written works in this theme, as well as continuing her research at PhD level.

Her current research-led practice is inspired by the exploration of embodied experience, identity and autotheory, symbolized by sculptural stiletto shoes which become activated during the performance with gradual, loving destruction.

Underpinned by the Deleuzian concept of ‘becoming-woman’ as a conceptual framework, her practice seeks to create not only a sense of wonder at what a body can do but to explore the collective consciousness of signifiers, employing feminist epistemology that Jones says ‘…must acknowledge not only the temporality and processual nature of identifying but also the intersectional quality of how and what we identify in ourselves and others’ (2012, p. 177). 

Arlene aims to continue making experimental enquiries of durational live performance and sculptural works, with resulting performative works in moving image, lens based media and written works in this theme, as well as continuing her research at PhD level.

References:

Jones A. (2012). Seeing Differently: A History and Theory of Identification and the Visual Arts. London and New York: Routledge.