Anna Macleod in conversation with Sarah Searson

Anna Macleod is a Scottish-Irish visual artist, researcher, and educator based in the Northwest of Ireland. She holds a BA in Fine Art Sculpture from NCAD and a MA in Fine Art Practice from IADT. Her work mediates complex ideas associated with contemporary, historical, and cultural understandings of land and water through a variety of visual art media. 

She has exhibited extensively in Ireland and internationally since the 1990s. Recent awards and residencies (2021-2024) include Centre Culturel Irlandais, France; Reach Scotland Residency Award, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Scotland; International Artist Residency Award at Pasaj in Istanbul, Turkey, and at Interface in Connemara, Ireland.

Macleod the Platform 31 Award from the Association of Local Authority Arts Offices in 2021. She was awarded the Visual Arts Bursary Award (2021) and Agility Award (2023) from the Arts Council of Ireland, and the Individual Artist Bursary (2025, 2026) from Leitrim County Council. Anna Macleod was an invited artist to the 194th RHA Annual Exhibition in 2024 receiving the ESB Moran Award for an Outstanding Sculpture.  

In 2026, She was awarded the International Atlantic Artist Residency Exchange in Newfoundland with CRUX and Artlink, as well as the Jon Schueler Scholarship from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Scotland, and the Jon Schueler Foundation, New York.