About — Mavourneen Dooley

Mavourneen Dooley

𐙚 Mavourneen in {Consumer}land
𐙚 American Girl Doll
𐙚 Burning Wrath
𐙚 Blood & Grain
𐙚 Gentle Offering
𐙚 Aphrodisiac
𐙚 You Can Watch Me Sleeping

About

Mavourneen Dooley is an American-born artist currently based in London. Her research-driven art practice spans sculpture, textiles, photography, performance, and writing. Growing up in a Christian cult in New York, she studied the bible from a young age. She then went on to study Christian theology and rhetoric in high school, where she deconstructed her faith through feminist texts she found on Tumblr. Her practice became an intersection of the physical and virtual worlds, mixing internet aesthetics and contemporary trends with traditional craft materials that she learned growing up in her conservative Christian household. Techniques historically associated with care, devotion, and domestic labour are recontextualised in her work through digital references.

Her work often mixes this use of internet memes and imagery with religious themes, exploring her girlhood through online existence made physical. Her work evokes an awareness of the internet as a site of personal histories and memories. With her girlhood as something learned, surveilled, and rehearsed both online and religiously, her work reclaims what it means to be a girl through her use of overtly feminine objects such as bows and lace. By translating this digital imagery into tactile forms, she shrinks the distance between screen-based identity and lived human experience.

Dooley resists fixed hierarchies between high and low culture, belief and scepticism, permanence and ephemerality. Much of the work plays with both aspects of the temporal spectrum. Some work, made of edible materials to be eaten and fade away, and some, made to exist on the internet forever. This oscillation between decay and permanence reflects religious notions of the eternal alongside the internet’s promise of endless circulation.

Her work asks how belief systems are formed outside institutional religion, particularly through online subcultures, fandoms, and digital spirituality. Dooley invites viewers to confront the tensions between the organic and the synthetic, the sacred and the decayed.

Contact: mavourneendooley@gmail.com

Education

BFA | Fashion Institute of Technology | Photography and Related Media | 2021

MA | Central Saint Martins | Fine Art | 2026

Solo Exhibitions

Unforseen Hideaway | Pingyao International Photo Festival |September 2021 | Pingyao, China

Group Exhibitions

Sanctuaries | St Augustine’s Church | April 2026 | London, UK

Lesbian Surfaces | Vagina Museum | February 2026 | London, UK

American Bacchanal | 162 holloway rd | February 2026 | London, UK

Vaulted | CND | February 2026 | London, UK

L Word(s) | The Good Rice | June 2025 | London, UK

“Is that straight?” | Hypha Kentish Town | June 2025 | London, UK

Perhaps We Should Reconsider | CSM MA Art Interim Show | March 2025 | London, UK

The Big Mixer | The Good Rice | December 2024 | London, UK

After-Hours: People Who Work Here | David Zwirner | June 2024 | New York City, USA

Slow Selfie | Novado Gallery | September 2023 | Jersey City, USA

Gratification | Treat Gallery | August 2023 | Online

Small But Impressive | WHAM | August 2023 | Surprise, Arizona, USA

Hilltop Country Day School Art Exhibition and Sale | November 2021 | Sparta, New Jersey, USA

Fresh Meat | SoMad Gallery | June 2021 | New York City, USA

While I Was Away | FIT BFA Graduating Show | May 2021 | Online

Lucida | FIT | November 2019 | New York City, USA

FIT Student Show | Pingyao International Photo Festival | September 2019 | Pingyao, China

(A)A Salon | FIT AAS Graduating Show | May 2019 | New York City, USA

Sonder III | March 2019 | New York City, USA

Awards

Emerging Photographers Award | PIP Festival |September 2019 | Pingyao, China

Events

Floralia | June 2025 | London, UK

Plato’s Rave | MAGNEFIRE | May 2025 | London, UK

PORTAL 002; A Deer in the headlights… | April 2025 | London, UK

The Miserly Knight | April 2025 | London, UK

Aphrodite’s Archer | February 2025 | London, UK

Publications

Seedlings IV: Feast

Oral Rinse 5 {The Fairytale Issue}

Homegrown Zine 8

W27 Fall/Winter Issue 2019

Press

Dazed

Sludgemag

W27

Jersey City Times