Operation Transformation

Catalyst Arts Graduate Awardee 24/25 - Finn Nichol
3 April - 1 May 2025

Finn Nichol is an artist working between Offaly and Belfast. His practice investigates narrative through a cross-disciplinary approach, drawing from folklore, history, and media, with a focus on homemade, DIY techniques. Nichol has exhibited nationally and internationally and was the recipient of the 2021 Taylor Prize at the RDS Visual Art Awards.

His work, Operation Transformation, embodies the spirits of neoliberal Ireland, enacting strange, solitary rituals that connect mythological transformation to Ireland’s evolving relationship with capitalism and colonial anxiety. Conceptual elements are autobiographically integrated, grounding personal histories of chronic illness and economic instability within a broader Irish historical framework.

The eponymous installation presents a single character across a video piece and loose crayon drawings. Its title references the post-Celtic Tiger health show aired on RTÉ One, positioning reality makeover television as an expression of colonial self-loathing. Ritual confession and the shaming of participants for perceived sloth and gluttony reflect a distinctly Irish-Catholic asceticism. Fasting and exercise became a form of economic transubstantiation as the language surrounding austerity became corporeal. Terms like “lean government” and “bloated public sector” synonymize bodily health with economic discipline. Economic recession is framed as resulting from individual greed rather than the failure of post colonial systems and bodies are fascistically valued in terms of power and economic productivity.  

Nichol is interested in how national narratives are shaped- in the collision of personal and cultural memory. The stark transformative forces that shaped Ireland - theocracy, division and hyper capitalism, did not erase past identities but layered over them. Strata of paganism, theocracy and colonialism inform our interpretation of present and recent histories, underpinning how we collectively understand ourselves. 

Irish Catholic values persist in views surrounding austerity and wellness while economic crises revives old anxieties around Irish capacity for self governance. The work invites viewers to question the histories underlying our assumptions, to think of history as a cyclical accretion of attitudes rather than a straight line. 

The exhibition is kindly funded by Ulster University and Offaly County Council.

Thanks to the following individuals for their assistance in the creation and installation of this work:
Filming: Nathan Campion, Mark Ferris, Conor Toner
Install: Lucy Carrick, Catalyst Co-Directors
Special thanks: Annie Nichol, Lucinda Graham