Artist of the Month, August 2025 – Nollaig Molloy

Nollaig Molloy is a visual artist based between Belfast and Roscommon. She works with moving image, sculptural installation, sound, facilitating workshop and event-based outcomes, to investigate landscape and explore materials from specific sites to reflect on their relevance in historical, social and industrial situations. Using traditional and craft-based techniques, Nollaig engages with 'materials-to-hand' taken from natural landscapes and placing them within contemporary contexts.

Worth Your Salt is part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s art collection. This photograph belongs to a series of digital photographs exploring the material of rock salt. The photograph presents the finished inscription on a large piece of rock salt by stone carver and artist Séamus Dunbar. The expression to be 'worth your salt' in describing someone as a good or valuable worker can be traced back to ancient Rome where soldiers were sometimes paid in salt and it has been carved in a derivative font of Times New Roman, so that the final image is a reflection of the sculptor's time spent with this material.

Further information about Nollaig and her work can be found at www.nollaigmolloy.com