PASCAL UNGERER
Pascal Ungerer is a visual artist based in Cork, Ireland. He specialise’s in contemporary landscape oil painting. His art practice primarily explores spatial cultures with a particular focus on speculative future landscapes and peripheral topographies.
He graduated with an MFA from Goldsmiths University London in 2018 and has a BFA from The MTU Crawford College of Art & Design.
His painting work examines the relationship, conflict and dichotomy between the built and the natural world and looks at liminal environments and structures that lie on the margins of human habitation. He often explores the interstitial spaces and edgelands situated at the intersection of the urban and rural.
Ungerer says his 'painting practice is grounded in an archaeology of the recent past' and he sees it as a 'means of uncovering hidden layers of meaning within the everyday'. Most of his paintings are fictional landscapes and structures that are loosely based on locations he has visited, researched or photographed in the past. Then he amalgamates these images or ideas into a metaphorical environment within his paintings in order to reflect upon wider socio-geographic issues, such as ecological degradation, alterity, peripherality, speculative future landscapes and The Anthropocene.
He is interested in infrastructure and habitats that are ambiguous, amorphic or obsolete. Ungerer says he sees these structures and topographies as being an ‘architecture of the periphery and an allegorical reference for time, change and history as well as being symbolic or suggestive of an anthropomorphic landscape’. Much of his painting practice explores potential future landscapes inspired by ethereal topographies that oscillate between progress and decline within the arena of the everyday.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Education & Qualifications
2018 Goldsmiths University London, MFA Fine Art
2016 Crawford College of Art & Design, BA Honours Fine Art
Solo Exhibitions
2027 Súil Gallery, Clare, Ireland (forthcoming)
2025 'Other Ground' The LAB Gallery, Dublin, curated by Margarita Cappock
2024 'Speculative Artefacts' Artlink, Fort Dunree, Donegal, Ireland
2023 'Speculative Artefacts' The Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, curated by Ann Davoren
2022 'Earthbound' GOMA - Gallery of Modern Art, Waterford, Ireland
2022 'Trace Elements' Gallerie Burgerstockersenger, Zurich, Switzerland
2021 'Shifting Planes' The Prism Contemporary, curated by Alex Zawadzi, Blackburn, UK
Selected Group Exhibitions & Screenings
2026 Jaipur Art Week, Edition 5.0, India (forthcoming)
2025 'Congruence' Two person show with Emmanual Matt at SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2025 The Border Biennale, Cavan, Ireland, curated by Rita Duffy & Joe Keenan
2023 The Robert Walters UK New Artist of The Year, The Saatchi Gallery, London
2023 FUTUROPIA, The Peoples Museum, Culture Night, Limerick, curated by Jacinta Moore
2022 Group show curated by The Catherine Hammond Gallery, Bantry, Cork.
2019 'Vanishing Point', SUBURBINALE Film Festival 2019, Austria
2019 'Vanishing Point' London Experimental, The Islington Metal Works
2019 'Industrialised': Art in Manufacturing in the Gallery, Blackburn Museum, UK, curated by Alex Zawadzi
2019 Experimental Film and Video 2019, CICA Museum, South Korea
2019 'Vanishing Point', Soloris Film Festival, Nice, France
2018 'Of Memory' Damer House & CAGE Gallery, LOOP Festival, Barcelona
2018 'Binary/Non-Binary', GESTE 2018, Paris
2018 'Apophenia' with Anna Perach & Mariana Mauricio, curated by Alix Janta-Polczynski, Roman Road Gallery, London
2018 'Beyond the Standard Model', curated by Almanac Projects London
2017 Deptford X - Art Festival, Deptford, London
2017 'Other Fiction' - group show at Lewisham Art House, London
2017 The Solo Award'- Cello Factory/Chiara Williams Contemporary
2017 The Creekside Open, selected by Jordan Baseman, A.P.T Gallery, London
2017 'Edge of Place', USB Shuffle 5, Abteilung fur Alles Andere, Berlin
2015 'The Lives of Others', curated by Jason Esterhazy, FotoIstanbul, Turkey
2015 'Personal Mythologies', curated by Helio Leon, TACTIC, Cork Photo
2014 'Eigse', VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow Arts Festival
2014 'Pretty Vacant', group show in association with Seize International, Budapest
Awards & Bursaries
2023 Robert Walters UK New Artist of The Year, Saatchi Gallery, London, (Finalist)
2023 Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award
2022 Culture Ireland Funding
2021 Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award
2020 Cork City Council Arts Office Individual Artist Bursary Award
2020 Cork County Council A.I.R at the Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
2019 The Sunny Art Prize (Finalist)
2018 Cork City Council Arts Office Individual Artist Bursary Award
2018 Bloomberg New Contemporaries, (Shortlisted)
2017 Arts Council of Ireland Travel and Training Award
2017 The SOLO Award, with Chiara Williams Contemporary, (Finalist)
2016 Goldsmiths Masters Scholarship
2016 Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art Fee Waiver Award
2016 Goldsmiths Excellence Award
2016 Alliance Francaise de Cork Solo Exhibition Award
2015 Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize (Finalist)
Residencies
2026 SOMOS, Berlin (forthcoming)
2024 A.I.R, JOYA, Spain
2023 A.I.R, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
2021 A.I.R, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
2020 Project Residency at Backwater Artist Studios, Cork
2020. Cork County Council A.I.R at the Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
2019 A.I.R, JOYA, Spain
2019 A.I.R, Auxiliary Project Space, Stockton, UK
Artist Talks & Presentations
2025 Artist Talk and Gallery Walk Through with curator Margarita Cappock at The LAB Gallery Dublin
2023 Artist talk at The Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
2022 Artist talk at the Gallery of Modern Art, Waterford
2021 Artists talk for D.I.T MA students at the West Cork Arts Centre
2021 Artist talk for The MTU Crawford College of Art and Design
2020 Presentation of work: Marginal Habitats, The Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre
2018 Presentation for Habda Rashid & Whitechapel Gallery Patrons at Goldsmiths
2018 Presentation of Work: Homeward Bound, Foto Istanbul
Press
Artsinsquare - issue 9
Quiet Lunch 04.12.18
The Irish Examiner
Waterford News & Star
Imagine Arts Festival
Murze Magazine, Issue 4
Wotisart Magazine # Portfolio 11
Tainted Glory Blog
UCC Radio Interview
Texts