My practice is grounded in drawing as a mode of presence and embodied inquiry.

Explored within a somatic and meditative field, drawing functions as a way of being in the moment—an unfolding process where body, materials and space co create.

Through a generative process, following feeling and material, forms emerge shaped by inner sensations and outer gestures and the moment of their making.  Drawing becomes a way of encountering a space between what is felt and what forms out of experiences of being, and sensations of a body.

I draw to discover the subtle, shifting formations of senses, perception and embodied attention.

Órla Bates is a visual artist from County Wexford, Ireland. She holds a BA in Fine Art (Printmaking) from Limerick School of Art and Design and a Higher Diploma in Art Education from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.

Órla’s work has been selected for national, and international exhibitions. Recent group shows include Wide Open Spaces (Wexford Arts Centre and Wexford County Council), Doorways and Windows (WexArts), Cairde Visual (Sligo), Halftone (The Library Project, Dublin), and Hang Tough Contemporary (Dublin). Internationally, her recent work has featured in Drawing Articulations: A Radical Drawing Symposium (Leeds School of Arts), Drawing in Relation (Drawing Research Network, Loughborough University, UK; curated by Arno Kramer), and Cotyledon (Cotyledon Projects, Los Angeles, CA).

Her practice has been supported by numerous awards, including the Artlink Bursary Award (2025, 2023, 2015, 2012), the Arts Council Professional Development Award (2021) and the Tyrone Guthrie Bursary Award from Wexford County Council.

She has participated in several artist residencies, including Lodestar Contemporary in France, Belgium and Limerick (2021–2024), Tyrone Guthrie Centre, and Ballinglen Arts Foundation.

As well as being an artist Órla also works as an art educator and facilitator.