Born and raised in rural Co. Louth, Arlene Caffrey is a visual artist, educator and researcher now based in Kilkenny City. Informed by a deep-rooted connection to dance, her practice explores embodied experience and identity.

Arlene’s playful research reflects the shifting cultural and socio-political landscape of contemporary Ireland, shaped by feminist and gender identity theory. Through live performance, sculpture and image-making, she examines her position as a rural Irish woman within these contexts, seeking to provoke thought around constructs of femininity and the body.

One expression of this is her previous performance artwork The Sweets Of Sin (2023), where she dances on eight-inch chocolate sculptural stilettos and invites the audience to eat the shoes in a playful interrogation of signifiers, power and consumption.

Her first solo exhibition, SEX! DEVIANCE! DANGER!, at An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk (24th June – 18th July 2026) explores how pole dancing, a popular cultural form, can serve as a movement methodology for interrogating embodiment and identity.

Her work has been shown in Ireland and internationally, including at The National Craft Gallery (Kilkenny), VISUAL Centre for Contemporary Art (Carlow), Garter Lane Studios (Waterford), The Tea Houses (Kilkenny), An Chéad Tine (Kilkenny), West End Arts Studio (Mallow) and Galería del Antiquarium (Spain).
Arlene is carrying out a practice-based PhD in Fine Art at the Technological University of the Shannon. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art & Design (2023) and a degree in Design – Visual Communications from the Dublin Institute of Technology (2009).

Arlene is also a member of Bbeyond (Belfast) and Live Art Ireland (Tipperary). Her practice is supported by Research Ireland and Kilkenny Arts Office.