Lilymay Healy is an artist and curator from Galway on the West Coast of Ireland. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematical Science from the University of Galway in 2023 and a Graduate Diploma of Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art in 2025.
Healy works with textile, metal, drawing, painting, print, collected objects and writing. She creates mythopoetical vision machines in which moments of alignment, ruptures of vision and wave phenomena manifest new ways of seeing. Consisting of interactions between light sources, optical devices and textiles, her installations consider scientific imaging and the visualisation of the ephemeral, the imperceptible, the abstract, the infinitesimal and the unknown. She is interested in the slippage between states; landscape and sea, visible and invisible, particle and wave. By employing theatrical aesthetics she creates illusions as well as revealing their mechanisms.
Her work sits between the ornamental and illustrative, the speculative and experimental, the experiential and art as object. Through material decisions and craft techniques such as embroidery and appliqué, feminine labour and aesthetics sit in relation to a broader enquiry into performativity and identity construction. Through abstraction or the duplication of images, Healy investigates light as a conceptual framework for knowledge to project across the gaps between personal experience, natural phenomena, optical perception, scientific knowledge and artistic expression.
She is always looking for the glint.
CV
Born 2001, Galway, Ireland. London and Galway-based.
Education
2025 - 2026 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, London, UK
2024 - 2025 Graduate Diploma Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, London, UK
2019 - 2023 BSc (Hons) First Class, Mathematical Science, University of Galway, Ireland
2025 Co-founder et al. collective Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
Group Exhibitions
2026 Chelsea Arts Club Trust Awards Salon, Flat Time House, Peckham, London, UK
2026 Folús, Satellite Projects & Studios, Galway, Ireland
2026 Alternating Current, MA Fine Art Degree Show, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
2026 Platform, The Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye Station, London, UK as part of et al. collective
2026 Home House, Cookhouse Gallery, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
2025 The Hold, The Crypt Gallery, London, UK as part of et al. collective
2025 Graduate Diploma Fine Art Final Showcase, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
2025 Re-place, Safehouse 1 & 2, London, UK
2025 Inflection/Ascension, Cookhouse Gallery, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
2024 Graduate Diploma Fine Art Interim Show, Chelsea College of Arts, London, UK
Curation
2026 Folús, Satellite Projects & Studios, Galway, Ireland
2026 Platform, The Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye Station, London, UK as part of et al. collective
2025 The Hold, The Crypt Gallery, London, UK as part of et al. collective
Solo Exhibitions
2025 it is advisable to look from the tidepool to the stars and then back to the tidepool again, B-Side Gallery, WestEnd Theatre and Arts Festival, Galway, Ireland
Publications
2024 Ethereal Magazine, Issue 2: Five Elements
Awards
Chelsea Arts Club Trust MA Materials and Research Award
University of the Arts London Home Postgraduate Scholarships
University of Galway School of Physics Second Year Laboratory Gold Medal
University of Galway College of Science and Engineering University Scholar Award For First, Second and Third Year