Lorraine Whelan is an Irish-Canadian writer and visual artist based in Ireland. She was born and grew up in Toronto. After high school Whelan studied art at Central Technical School’s Three Year Special Art Course (Toronto) from which she received a diploma in 1981. She then went on to receive a BFA (Specialized Honours) from York University (Toronto) in 1986 and a post-graduate certificate in Art, Research & Collaboration (ARC) from IADT, Dún Laoghaire in 2016.

Whelan’s prose, poetry, and art criticism has appeared in Ireland, Canada, USA, Luxembourg and online. She has exhibited her artwork both nationally and internationally. Her artwork is included in public, private and corporate collections in Ireland, USA, Canada, UK, Belgium, and Australia.

Most recently Whelan’s exhibition of paintings and prints, Memory Is My Homeland, was shown at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, in the spring of 2022. In the fall of 2022, Whelan was awarded an Agility Award by The Arts Council – An Chomhairle Ealaíon to research and complete a new body of monoprints, Lost.

Whelan develops her work from charged responses to personal circumstances and her environment. She has an ongoing interest in the study of dreams and often uses dream imagery and symbols related to her life within both her visual and verbal repertoire. In her most recent work she explores the universal themes of memory, place, identity and time, through the eyes of personal experience. She uses a variety of media in her work such a painting, drawing, print media, ceramics, writing and bookbinding – whatever medium happens to be suitable to the work idea.