Golden Fleece Award

We are thrilled to announce the eight artists shortlisted for the #GFAward2026, with a prize fund worth €40,000! - Emma Bourke - Lisa Freeman - Adam Frew - Pierce Healy - Marielle MacLeman - Conor McFeely - Róisín O’Sullivan - Róisín Pierce 💛🐏 goldenfleeceaward.com/news/2026-gold…

'Filial Love', a solo exhibition by #GFAward2025 recipient Sasha Sykes, is on view at the RHA Gallery until 29 March 2026. Explore more: rhagallery.ie/events/exhibit… Image: @sashasykes / @oliver.sears #SashaSykes #FilialLove #RHAGallery

Happy International Women’s Day from the Golden Fleece Trust! 💛🐏 Today we celebrate Helen Lillias Mitchell (1915–2000) — artist, researcher, educator and founder of the Trust. Shown is her painting Motley (1936), made for the RDS Competition and shown at the Dublin Horse Show

📢 Artists! Craftspeople! Makers! The deadline for the #GFAward2026 is TODAY - Friday 28 November - at 5pm. To be in with a chance to win one of the two €10,000 Awards on offer, enter now via our website! 💛🐏 ➡️goldenfleeceaward.com/how-to-apply/g…

We are delighted to announce that Ciara Hickey is joining our Advisory Panel for the #GFAward2026 💛🐏 Ciara is a curator based in Belfast. She is co-director of Household, and previously curator of the Freelands Artist Programme through PS2 and curator at Belfast Exposed.

Are you an arts administrator looking for a new role? Well, we're seeking to hire a new Administrator on a part-time contractual basis and it could be you! For full job description and application information, see ➡️ goldenfleeceaward.com/news/new-admin… 💛🐏 Deadline: 5pm, 7 November 2025

The call for applications for the 2026 Golden Fleece Award is now open! Two awards worth €10,000 each - one in Category 1: Visual Art and one in Category 2: Craft + Applied Art - will be made. Deadline: 5pm, 28 November 2025 💛🐏 For full details see ➡️ goldenfleeceaward.com

We're hiring! The Trustees of the #GoldenFleeceAward invite applications for the position of Administrator on a part-time contractual basis. For full job description and application information, see ➡️ goldenfleeceaward.com/news/new-admin… 💛🐏 Deadline: 5pm, 7 November 2025

The Trustees of the Golden Fleece Award are delighted to announce visual artist Sarah Browne and sculptor/designer Sasha Sykes as the winners of the 2025 Golden Fleece Award. 💛🐏 Visit our website to read all the details! ➡️ goldenfleeceaward.com/news/winners-o…

Sasha applied for a #GoldenFleeceAward to pursue more environmentally sustainable work exploring our relationship with the land and sea, testing the use of natural polymers and bio-resins derived from carrageen seaweeds. See more of her work here: sashasykes.com

Based between Carlow and Dublin, her work is handmade using acrylic and resins to explore, manipulate, and challenge the material language of the natural world through the embedding of plants, flowers, algae and fungi she collects directly from the landscape.

The final artist shortlisted for the #GFAward2025 is Sasha Sykes. With a background in architecture, she has exhibited her artwork/furniture pieces widely. An exploration of the cycle of life and decay, and the dichotomy of fragility and preservation, are central to her practice.

Michael applied for a #GoldenFleeceAward to undertake an ambitious new project celebrating and waking an endangered native Irish species – the Ash tree. Funding would cover the cost of materials and the purchase of a new lathe. See more of his work here: instagram.com/nonviolentcutl…

He works collaboratively with wet green wood. This material retains a sense of autonomy throughout the making process: responding to his initial suggestion of form as it dries, then twisting and warping through a reciprocal dialogue between maker and material.

The seventh artist shortlisted for the #GFAward2025 is Wicklow cabinet-maker, woodturner and sculptor Michael Murphy. Current ventures include Mammals+ and Non Violent Cutlery, and his work aims to create modern artefacts that possess a unique sense of ritual and embodied time.

Sorcha applied for a #GoldenFleeceAward to support the development of a new body of work for an upcoming solo exhibition at @LinenhallMayo in 2025, collaboration with an architect, and the purchase of new photographic equipment. See more of her work here: sorchamcnamara.com

She approaches making through the lens of the offcut, the outlier, or the fragment – piecing segments of found or repurposed material together in order to form a whole painterly object. Recent work extends beyond the framework of the object and engages more directly with space.

The sixth artist to be shortlisted for the #GFAward2025 is Sorcha McNamara, who lives and works in Mayo. Her work uses the expanded physicality of painting to explore the relationship between the felt, embodied materiality of things alongside more calculated systems of thought.

Jan applied for a #GoldenFleeceAward to explore ideas made in response to a planned collaboration with scenic carpenters, leading to the development of a new large-scale sculptural installation informed by photography. View more of her work here: janmccullough.co.uk

Applying the materials and formal languages of construction, fabrication and DIY to photography and installation, her work considers how the invisible labour and evocative gestures of ordinary people, the objects they produce, and spaces where they work, can be represented.

The fifth artist shortlisted for the #GFAward2025 is Jan McCullough. Based in Co. Down, she studied Photography at @UlsterUni. Recent commissions have explored photography’s role in making visible previously unseen hierarchies of labour, & celebrating this formal acknowledgement.