A little bit about me.

My name is DECOY. I am a muralist from Ireland known for creating large-scale, colourful, abstract compositions. In recent years, my public profile and reputation as an emerging artist has been building from strength-to-strength. Completing multiple large-scale outdoor commissions over the years. I have been a practicing artist since 2008. Graduating from a degree in Fine art in NCAD, Dublin. With a background in Sculpture I have always wanted to expand to larger than life art. This led me to fall into the world of murals for the last 7 years.

Over these years I have played an ongoing role in the muralist community in Ireland by engaging with arts festivals; ‘Waterford Walls Project’, ‘Limerick City Build’, ‘Dun Laoghaire Anseo’ and ‘Hit the North’. Internationally I have painted murals in London, Paris, and Lisbon. With this ever expanding portfolio - plans are to continue to work on my practice and create artworks all around the world.

Why do I paint murals?

As modern society presents itself to us today, there is a huge amount of contrasting opinions on what is ‘okay’ to have painted on walls or why we should paint them at all? So much of what we see in a city can be visual noise. We are presented with a constant bar-age of advertisement in the forms of billboards, signage, and screens. Steel and concrete buildings shoot up and change our street scape at a momentum that we have never seen before.

I see urban art as a break from the normal. An opportunity to question the consensus of our world. Why is it ‘okay’ to have a billboard on the wall? Why not an artwork? Murals have the ability to positively affect a community. Not only this, but they act as a break from the noise - a necessary distraction. I have seen the the valuable contribution that murals of mine and my contemporaries have made to streets, alley ways and towns of Ireland. For these reasons alone I see it as the best medium for me to be involved with. I want to inject a sort of wonder back into the streets. How my works are then interpreted is up to the viewer.

What’s next?

Looking to the future I want to continue to be involved in the field of urban art. This might mean taking the time to create a solo exhibition celebrating my current series of murals. I would like to make a yearly recurring mural festival happen in Dublin city. I think this would greatly benefit upcoming Irish muralists and inspire many more people to get on board with the positive ethos that murals have on society. My mural practice continues to evolve and I have no plans on stopping any time soon.