Creative Facilitator

Ciaran Byrne
Making art with intention

A Wexford-based visual artist working alongside individual therapy clients, meeting each person where they are, and making together what words alone cannot hold.

What brings you here
01

What do you want
to do in sessions?

There is no single way to use art in a therapeutic space. You can choose one, two, or all three, and they can shift across sessions as you do.

Play
Follow your curiosity
Try different materials, follow wherever your mind takes you, and let go of any expectation of a result. Play in sessions looks a lot like the kind of making you did as a child, before anyone told you there was a right way to do it. There is no goal here, and that is precisely what makes it so useful.
Learn
Build a skill with Ciaran
You can focus on learning to draw, to paint, to work with a specific material or technique. Ciaran is an excellent tutor and brings genuine pleasure to teaching. Learning something new in a supported, unhurried space can be its own kind of therapy, and the skill stays with you long after the sessions end.
Create
Make something real
You want to produce something, a painting, an object, a series of pieces. You can choose one work or several, and if what you have in mind takes time, it can unfold across multiple sessions. There is no rush. The work is finished when it feels finished to you.

These are not fixed categories. Most people find themselves moving between all three across the course of their sessions, and that is entirely the point.

How it works
02

A process shaped
around you

The art-making in sessions is a living part of your therapeutic process, something you can return to, build on, or let change direction entirely from one week to the next.

Beginning
Finding a starting point together
There is no assumed direction. Early sessions are about listening, to what you bring, what you are drawn to, what feels possible. Ciaran works with you to find a form that fits the moment.
Making
Doing it, and noticing what happens
Each session is an opportunity to process, explore, or simply make something. The relationship between you and Ciaran shifts from week to week, sometimes collaborative, sometimes more independent, always guided by what feels useful in that moment.
Reflection
Looking back at what you have made
Over time the work accumulates into something you can hold and look at. What you make across sessions becomes a record of where you have been and, sometimes, a way of understanding where you are going.
Outcome
Something real to take with you
By the end of a series of sessions, clients have created something, a body of work, a painting, an object, that belongs to them entirely. The outcome is as individual as the process that made it.
How Ciaran works
03

Adapting to
each session

No two clients need the same thing, and no two sessions within the same process are identical. Ciaran's role changes depending on where you are.

Side by side
Making together, both in the work, both contributing. Useful when something feels too large to hold alone.
Guided
Ciaran leads with form or materials while you bring the content. A gentle structure for when the blank page feels like too much.
Witness
You make and Ciaran holds the space. Sometimes the most important thing is simply having someone present while something is being created.
Responsive
Each session opens fresh. Whatever mode serves you that week, that is where the work begins.
About
04

"I am a Wexford-based Visual Artist that uses my creative practice as a means of emotional exploration and expression."

Ciaran holds a BA (Hons) in Art and Design from SETU, where his studies focused on dialectical and community-based art. His thesis examined these themes through the work of Brian Maguire, particularly Maguire's long engagement with prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and other institutional spaces where art is rarely expected to be.

His practice is grounded in the belief that art can serve as a powerful voice, especially in moments where words feel inaccessible. He is deeply interested in creating spaces where individuals can express complex emotions, process experiences, and communicate what might otherwise remain unspoken.

Working as Creative Facilitator alongside the therapeutic space, Ciaran brings a practiced artistic sensibility and a deep ease with people who have never thought of themselves as creative. His role is to follow the energy of each individual session and find the form that serves it.

Recent commissions
05
2026
The Lady in Blue
Oil on canvas · 60 × 50 cm
2026
Ogham Engravings
Pyrography on Irish wood
2025
Echoes Within
Album cover for 12 Gauge Outrage · Oil on canvas · 60 × 50 cm
Exhibition history
06
  • 2022Kunst und Krieg KonferenceBauhaus Reuse, Berlin
  • 2019Operation System TerrorKraftwerk Mitte, Dresden
  • 201413 DegreesVoid Gallery, Derry
  • 201413 DegreesWAC, Wexford
  • 2013An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of BoredomVisual, Carlow

Curious about the process?

Talk to us about whether expressive arts is right for where you are right now.

Get in touch