About

Chris Doris is an artist whose work explores how form, perception, and presence arise within constrained conditions. Working across painting, print, drawing, and relational practices, he is interested in the threshold where form emerges and dissolves—where what is seen is never fully fixed.

At the core of the practice is an inquiry into perception itself: how experience is formed, stabilised, and released. Paintings often develop through restricted visual systems in which marks function less as composition and more as traces of events within a field. The work suggests a language of partial emergence rather than resolved image.

Alongside studio work, Doris develops relational and durational inquiries—often structured around attention, silence, and shared presence. These works extend the concerns of the studio into live situations, where observation becomes the central medium.

The practice is informed by long engagement with contemplative training, psychotherapy, and sustained observation of psychological and perceptual processes. These influences are not presented as subject matter, but as disciplines that shape how attention, structure, and emergence are approached in the work.

Earlier projects such as 40 Days and Forty Nights (1991) initiated a trajectory of process-based and socially engaged work that continues to evolve through both public and studio contexts.

Chris Doris lives and works in Co. Mayo and Dublin.

Chris Doris’ practice spans the public art space, the performance art space and a studio-based practice in painting, print and drawing. His work explores the nature of self, being and relationship. It imports modes of transformation and seeing into art from psychotherapy, psychology and contemplative practices. 

He is a psychotherapist whose practice includes training artists in creative presence and flow. Chris also spent 3 years as a Board Member of the Model Arts Centre in Sligo from 2013 to 2016.

One-Person Exhibitions

Oct 21 - 26th,2020: Online exhibition of Who Goes There with Westival Arts Festival.

17th November 2018 - 27th January 2019: “The Empty Field”, Model Arts Centre, Sligo. 

1st - 30th September 2018: “Object Relations”, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Mayo.

29th June-27th August 2017: “The Space Between”, Limerick City Gallery.

2017 Who Goes There – Two exhibitions in black and white. Ballina Arts Center and Custom House Gallery, Westport, Mayo.

2009 Open Paintings – The Paul Kane Gallery, Dublin

2008 Exchange - Eagle Gallery, London

2008 Love Thing – Claremorris Gallery, Claremorris, Co. Mayo

2008 Connectivity – Castlelacken Studio, Lacken, Co. Mayo

2007 Seeing and Believing – Design Factory, Dublin

2007 Mindgames (2)- The Paul Kane Gallery, Dublin

2006 Nameless - The Paul Kane Gallery, Dublin

2006 Mindgames – Ballina Arts Centre, Co Mayo

2006 Satsangh –The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon Co Leitrim

2003 Balance (1) - Foxford Exhibition Centre, Foxford, Co. Mayo

2003 Balance (2) - Leadwhite Gallery, Dublin

2001 Ards Exhibition Centre – Northern Ireland

2000 Lineage – Ballina Arts Centre

1999 Unearth (1) – The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo

1999 Unearth (2) – RHA Ashford Gallery, Dublin

1998 Free State – Model Art Centre, Co. Sligo

1997 Daintree Warehouse – Dublin.

1997 The Sign of the Cross – Foxford Exhibition Centre, Foxford, Co. Mayo

1991 Samskaras – Project Art Centre, Dublin

1989 Icons and Monoprints – The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin (One wing of I.M.M.A.)

Interventions

2019 Taking History, Model Arts Centre.

2019 Artist’s Creativity and Mindfulness Workshop, Model Arts Centre.

2017 Taking History, Limerick City Art Gallery.

2013 How Best to Spend 10 Minutes with an Old Man?, The Dock,Carrick-on-Shannon.

2010 10 Poets Observe, Dublin City Gallery.

2009 Whatshappening, Dail Eireann, Leinster House, Dublin.

2007 Silencer - 30 Days of Silence, Public Art Project, Castlelacken Studio and nationally

2000 Via – A 2000km Hitched Line Drawing, Co. Mayo

1999 40 Days and 40 Nights - Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo

1987 – 90 Artists on the Boards - Group Billboard Installations, Dublin

1985/86 800 Painted Heads - Dublin City Centre Streets

1986 - 88 Rotating Group Exhibition - Resocialization Unit, St. Brendan’s Mental Hospital

Selected Group Exhibitions

2013 More Than This, Mountmellick Library and Art Centre.

2013 More Than This, Cork Vision Center,
2012: Positions, C.I.T. Wandesford Quay Gallery,
2009 Another Island Irish Voices - Irish Cultural Centre, New York

1992 Banquet Exhibition – Riverrun Group Show, Transmission Irish Life Centre

1990 Banquet Exhibition – RHA Gallery

1988 Painting the Town – 6 Artists, Projects Arts Centre

1988 Art Works - Temple Bar Gallery

1988 Flags Along the Liffey - Dublin

1988 Claremorris Open Art Exhibition

1988 Into the Third Dimension – Sligo Town Hall

1988 G.P.A. Awards for Emerging Artists - Douglas Hyde Gallery

1988 Independent Artists against Repression

1987 G.P.A. Awards for Emerging Artists - R.H.K.

1987 Irish Exhibition of Living Art - The Guinness Hop Store, Dublin

1987 2 Group Shows, Hendriks Gallery

1987 Artists on the Boards- Dublin City Centre

1986 The Graduate Show - Temple Bar Gallery

1986 Independent Artists – Dublin, Belfast, Limerick

1986 The Artists and the Bomb – Dublin, Cork, Limerick

Moscow, Opening Exhibition, Tivoli Creativity Centre, Dun Laoghaire

Awards

2017 Mayo County Council Exhibition Assistance Grant

2006 Liam Walsh Award, Leader Capital Grant

2003 Arts Council Bursary

1999 Artist in Residence Mayo County Council 

1998 Mayo County Council Exhibition Assistance Grant

Nominated for Sunday Independent / Ford Spirit of Life Award

Arts Council Bursary

1996 Arts Council Travel Award

1994 Artist in Schools Residency in Mayo

1988 Irish Exhibition of Living Art Banner Design Award

1989/90 Art Council Awards

Arts Council Award for “Artists on the Boards” ’87

1987 Dublin Corporation Arts Award

Collections

I.M.M.A. 

Arts Council of Ireland 

O.P.W.

Bank Of Ireland

Contemporary Irish Arts Society

Mayo County Council

Glen Dimplex

Private Collections 

A.I.B.

G.M.I.T.

Private collections in: Ireland, UK, USA, India

Bibliography

The Space Between - Catalogue 2017

Who Goes There - Catalogue 2017

How Best to Spend 10 Minutes With an Old Man? , card and text--2013

10 Poets Observe, brochure- 2010

Connectivity – Catalogue 2008

Open Paintings Catalogue – 2008

Whatshappening , postal art card and text, 2009

Artists on the Boards - Lyell Davies, Circa No. 37

On the Face of the Waters - Fintan O’Toole, Icons and Monoprints Catalogue

Chris Doris at RHK - Desmond MacAvock, Irish times, 22/11/89

Anti-Yuppie Defiance by Chris Doris - Kate Robinson, Sunday Independent 12/11/89

Chris Doris at RHK - Tom Weir, ORB Magazine, Issue No 1

An Artist Uneasy with Institutions - Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times 28/10/90

Epic Faces of History’s Victims - Aidan Dunne, Sunday Tribune 5/11/89

Chalk Abstracts at the Project - Sunday Independent, John Hutchinson 1991

Anxiety and Perception - John Hutchinson (Samskaras Catalogue) 1991

Exhibition by Chris Doris at the Project - Desmond MacAvock, Irish Times November 1991

Spiritual Values versus Commerce - Aidan Dunne, Sunday Tribune 27/01/91

Chris Doris – An Exciting Show, In Dublin, November 1991

Would You Believe? - 4 Artists and Spirituality, RTE 1992

An Important Exhibition – Western People, September 1997

Sign of the Cross Catalogue 1997

Free State Catalogue 1998

Fragility and Mystery – Ciara Ferguson, Sunday Independent 4/98

Exhibition interview Arts West Magazine 1999

Unearth Catalogue 1999.

40 Days and 40 Nights on the Reek - 45 minute documentary compiled by Chris Doris.

Produced by Peter Woods

Broadcast RTE 1 Radio 15 and 18/3/2000

40 Days and 40 Nights - Céide Vol 3, September ’99

Sometimes Hell Mostly Heavenly - the Examiner 9/99

Mayo Artist follows in St. Patrick’s Footsteps – Irish Times 6/9/99

Artist collects words of 1,500 at top of the hill – Irish Times 6/9/99

Artist discovers something wild about the West – Dorothy Walker, Sunday Times 9/99

Mayo Artist Scales Spiritual Heights – Ireland on Sunday 29/8/99

Drawing on Inspiration – Sunday World 6/99

The Layering of Modern Myths – Aiden Dunne Irish Times

Cúrsaí Ealaíne – RTE 1 Television 9/99

The Arts Show – RTE Radio 18/99

Chris Doris on the Reek – Video

40 Days and 40 Nights on Croagh Patrick – Woman’s Way 6/00.

Review of Lineage – Arts West Magazine

Lineage – Ian Wiezcorek, Céide Magazine 6/00

A Social Sculptor – Chris Doris, Irish Review

Berlin Radio Documentary 2002

Balance Catalogue 2003

Self Evident - The Van, Irish Visual Artists Magazine 06

Mindgames Catalogue

The View - R.T.E Television

Aidan Dunne - Irish Times

An Alternative Perspective – Aidan Dunne, Irish Times 2006

All the Time in the World – Eimear McKeith, Sunday Tribune

Silencer – Your Chance to be part of a Work in Progress, Helen Falconer, Western People, 2007

Silencer – Nationwide, R.T.E. Television, February 2007