Karen Donnellan

Cultural theorist bell hooks writes, “What we cannot imagine, cannot come into being.” This is the ethos of my work. My not-so-secret agenda is one of love, magic, justice, beauty, and pleasure. Through my practice, I call in futures where we are all liberated, loved in our wholeness, and fully resourced.

My work is playfully political, queer, feminist, sex-positive, and rooted in radical craft—a practice that questions traditions, reinterprets materials and processes, and actively engages with political and social contexts. Audre Lorde’s essay, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, and Adrienne Maree Brown’s Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good are long-standing influences. My practice responds to kyriarchal systems that seek to separate bodies from spirit, and sexuality from divinity. Critic Aoife Banks describes the exhibition Cosmic Wetness, as embodying “a joyous, affecting congruence of feminine erotic pleasure and sensory knowledges.”

While I use a wide range of media, glass and sound are central to this endeavour. Glass holds light; sound carries vibration. Both speak the language of the mystical.

Bio

Karen Donnellan, aka Cosmic Wetness, is a psychic artist, energy healer, and educator. She holds a Bachelor of Design in Glass from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, and an MFA in Glass from the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York. From 2014 to 2022, she served as Director of the National Casting Center Glass Studios, Associate Professor of Glass, and Chair of the Sculpture/Dimensional Studies Program at Alfred University, NY.

Donnellan has been awarded residencies at the Toledo Museum of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, the Creative Glass Center of America, and Pilchuck Glass School. Her transdisciplinary practice—spanning sculpture, installation, language, and music—is represented in public and private collections and has been exhibited internationally at the Smithsonian Museum, Corning Museum of Glass, Tushanwan Museum, and the Museum of American Glass.

As an energy healer, Donnellan is a practitioner and teacher of Rising Star, Prema Birthing, Reiki, and Seichem modalities. She is an active member of Aerach Aiteach Gaelach, a collective of LGBTQ+ Irish-speaking artists, researchers, and activists; and facilitates the monthly Queercal Comhrá in Sligo.