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Sirius Arts Exhibition: Elinor O’Donovan – Metametamorphosis

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Elinor O’Donovan is an artist based in Dublin and originally from Cork City. Her work investigates the construction of meaning within the Western collective consciousness. It offers speculative responses to questions of knowledge, memory, and truth that shape social life.

O’Donovan’s practice encompasses film, collage, and installation. She translates her thinking, process, and materials into arrangements of images and objects that give the impression of a ‘bad’ museum. The eclectic elements she assembles, interconnected in various ways, function as a mind map that articulates her vision and imagination.
 
The exhibition Metametamorphosis centres on a film of the same name, employing Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis (1915) as a conceptual pun: Whereas Kafka’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, undergoes an inexplicable transformation from human to insect – often interpreted as a beetle – in O’Donovan’s work, Samsa discovers he has become The Beatles, embodying all four members simultaneously. Accompanying the film is a collection of miscellaneous images, both digital and hand-painted, referencing The Beatles, notions of space and time, and Kafka’s novella.

This exhibition is produced by SIRIUS and curated by Miguel Amado, Director, with contributions from Sarah Long, former Critic in Residence.


LAUNCH EVENT

SIRIUS
Saturday, 24 January
2-4pm
Free; no booking required

Elinor O’Donovan in conversation with Davey Moor

Elinor O’Donovan and Davey Moor, curator at the Royal Hibernian Academy, discuss the exhibition’s themes and key works, as well as the politics and aesthetics informing O’Donovan’s practice.

Accessibility Note
Our building has accessibility limitations. There are three steps to the front door, but a temporary wheelchair ramp is available upon request. Our facilities are also accessed via stairs.
Elinor O’Donovan, Metametamorphosis (still), 2025. HD video, colour, 16:9, sound, 5 minutes and 33 seconds. Courtesy of the artist
The film Metametamorphosis opens with a direct citation from the novella, presented through humorous index cards and voice-over. In the original text, Samsa awakens after uneasy dreams to find himself changed; in the film, he awakens in distress upon realising he is an altered version of Ringo Starr. Starr’s face is rendered using deepfake software, which imperfectly modifies Samsa’s features as he moves through his bedroom in an Irish suburban house.
 
The film unfolds with simultaneous incarnations of the other three members of The Beatles. George Harrison is represented by a segment of the River Ganges and its environs in Varanasi, India, a significant Hindu pilgrimage destination. Known for his belief in reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul, Harrison’s ashes were scattered in the River Ganges. John Lennon is reinvented as a busker in Strawberry Fields, a memorial site in Central Park, New York. Musician Jules Avalon performs The Beatles’ ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ (1966), reflecting tributes paid by fans. Paul McCartney’s counterpart appears as an actor in a studio, dressed in a suit and the iconic ‘mop-top’ hairstyle, suggesting a parodic stance towards the band’s legacy.
 
O’Donovan envisions Samsa as four distinct entities, each inhabiting different settings and eras, alluding to the song ‘Here, There and Everywhere’. The film employs a split-screen format to heighten this multi-persona state, emphasising the psychological intricacy of Kafka’s character. The dreamlike nature of the song’s composition and lyrics functions as the film’s core narrative device. Starr and McCartney are shown dancing to the music, at times with the River Ganges’s sounds overlapping. Their movements mirror those of swimmers in Varanasi and the musician in New York. In a sense, the four band members (re)unite to perform as a single act, momentarily reviving The Beatles.

The items that accompany the film in the exhibition are presented without contextual information or explanation, and are intentionally positioned without apparent order. The assemblage forms constellations of motifs and themes drawn from The Beatles’ iconography – album covers, newspaper cutouts of faces – interwoven with idealised depictions of the cosmos and nature, such as mountains, blue skies, clouds, valleys, the upper atmosphere, stars, and rocks. This display simultaneously evokes a wall of fame, which venerates individuals or events, and recalls the eclectic, haphazard grouping of objects in a teenager’s bedroom.

Metametamorphosis explores the continual rebirth of individuals, particularly celebrities, through processes of simulation and myth, generating an afterlife. Although the symbolism associated with The Beatles suggests a universal experience, the works ultimately reveal the constructed nature of a singular truth. The ‘meta’ aspect of the exhibition and film’s title, along with the self-referential commentary elicited by the works, signals a broader reflection on the complexities of shared experiences that form society.


Elinor O’Donovan currently holds a studio at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. She has held solo shows at GeneratorProjects in Dundee, Scotland, and Sample-Studios at the Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, both in Cork City, among other venues. Her films have been screened at the Crawford Art Gallery at The Arc Cinema, Cork International Film Festival in Cork City, and SIRIUS in Cobh, County Cork. Her commissions include the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork Midsummer Festival, and the National Sculpture Factory and Cork City Council for Island City, all in Cork City.  She received awards from the Arts Council, including the Bursary and Agility, and Cork City Council, and was shortlisted for the Golden Fleece Award. She has a BA in Art from Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland.
 
Elinor O’Donovan, Metametamorphosis, 2025. Inkjet print, 105 x 120 cm. Courtesy of the artist
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