I love drawing and making things and am currently working on a short animation called Keep Going, Little Snail, and a children’s book called Growing up Human.
I have degrees in architecture, animation, and a masters in digital media technology. I love storytelling and I work with a combination of hand drawing and digital design. I always go back to the hand made feel in my work. It’s a way of connecting with the viewer and it tells the story of the how the work is made. I am increasingly drawn towards the lack of control and uncertainty offered by mediums such as ink and watercolour. I am interested in trying to keep the energy of the process intact, through to the finished work, and sometimes that means leaving things unpolished, with traces of the mistakes intact. I like to feel into the medium and see where it takes me, and for that to work you have to find a way of staying open.
I’ve just completed three artist-in-school residencies in county Donegal as part of the Teacher Artist Partnership and BLAST schemes. I’m also back teaching adults again, with a live online stop motion workshop called Make it Move.
In 2019 I completed a degree in animation in Coláiste Dhúlaigh in Dublin. My graduate short, A Quack Too Far, is a dark comedy about an annoying but loveable duck who moves in next door to a fox.
Before animation, I illustrated the number one bestseller Naturama and My Naturama Nature Journal (I was Melissa Doran then). They are written by Michael Fewer and published by Gill Books.
B.A. (Hons) Animation Coláiste Dhúlaigh College of Further Education/ University of Wolverhampton, 2019
Cert. Animation Pulse College/ Griffith College, 2018
Cert. Entrepreneurship National College of Ireland, 2011
M.A. Digital Media Technology Dublin Institute of Technology, 2010
B.Sc. Architecture, University College Dublin, 2006
Artist Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, Young People, Children, and Education, 2024
Artist Bursary from Donegal County Council, 2023
Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, 2021
Artist Bursary from Donegal County Council and Creative Ireland, 2020
Artist Professional Development Award (Film) from the Arts Council of Ireland, 2020
Artist Bursary from Westmeath County Council, 2020
