Aideen Barry's work deals with the notion of the uncanny, in a search for the contemporary Gothic. This work has been informed by her recent diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. With plays on perspective Barry explores the impossible, hybridising between the real and the imagined. Rooted in her endurance performance work, she is interested in pushing her body to extremes, to create performative films and objects created out of scientific observations. Barry's work is heavily informed by the subverted female characters from the texts of Irish literary figures such as Bram Stoker and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, as well as other gothic writers who were preoccupied with Hysteria, such as Shelly, and Perkins-Gilmore.

Born in Cork and currently based in Galway, Aideen Barry is a Visual Artist, working in the mediums of performance, film, photography, musical composition, drawings and animation. Most recently she was awarded funding from the Arts Council of Ireland's Projects: New Work Award  2008-2009. In May 2008 Head of Exhibitions, Sean Kissane of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, selected Barry, to represent Ireland at FRA GIL (LOOP Video Art Biennal) in Barcelona, Spain. In December 2008 Barry showed at Elevator Gallery, and the Louise T. Bloudin Institute in London. In 2009 she will show in Wexner Center for the Arts in Ohio (USA) , The Butler Gallery (IRE),The Redhouse Arts Center(USA) and Bonnat Museum,(FRA).

Barry has received countless awards for her practice including: The New Work Award from the Arts Council of Ireland (2008-09) ,the Claremorris Open in 2004, the Travel and Mobility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland(2007) and received the Experimental Film Award at the Silent Light Super 8 film festival (Cork 2006). In 2007 Barry was the Irish Artist in Residence at the Banff Centre in Canada, where she has been invited to return by Head of Visual Arts, Naomi Potter, to complete another residency in 2009 and show work at the Walter Phillips Gallery. In 2007 She also undertook a residency for Convoy, in Seydisfjourder, in Iceland, which was funded by The Skaftfell Centre, Ard Bia Gallery and Culture Ireland.

In 2007 Barry Co-Curated TULCA: City of Strangers (Galway) and Terms & Conditions in the Mermaid Arts Centre Bray. She also curated Subversion and the Domestic: House Projects, with fellow Mavis Alumni, which has recently been published into a book on the 7-curated projects in Ireland, New York and London. (www.houseprojects.net) This project was supported under the Arts Council of Ireland. In December 2008 Barry completed a residency at Kennedy Space Centre, NASA ,where she underwent astronaut training through parabolic flights to create her new zero gravity film works, animations and performative objects.
www.aideenbarry.com