Rosie McGurran was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and received her degree in Fine Art from the University of Ulster in 1992. She was a member of Queen Street Studios, Belfast, in the 1990s before re-locating to the small village of Roundstone on the west coast of Ireland in 2000 where she still lives and where she runs a gallery and an annual island residency, The Inishlacken Project, for artists from around the world.

She has curated many exhibitions in Ireland and abroad while receiving awards and bursaries for her own work, for example, she was awarded The Arts Council of Northern Ireland Fellowship to The British School at Rome, The Victor Treacy Award, and The Conor Prize at the Royal Ulster Academy.

Rosie’s work has been shown around the world, with exhibitions in The British Embassy, Reykjavik, Iceland, The Wexford Arts Centre, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, The British School at Rome, University of Tromso, Norway, The Joan Lukas Rothenberg Gallery, Syracuse, New York, Indiana University, Gallerie Fauodic, Lorient, France, Gallerie Fold, Reyjavik, Iceland, Beaux Arts, Bath, The British Embassy, Rome, Villa Crispi, Naples and at Whitney Modern Art Gallery for Irish Arts and Writers Festival, Los Gatos, San Francisco, USA.

Her work has been included in the permanent collection of the NI Executive Office in Brussels.

Rosie is a long standing member of the Royal Ulster Academy.

The Importance of Light