Curly Bap: Making Art for Others and Herself

Curly Bap

Artist

From animal portraits to experiments with paper, textiles and clay, Curly Bap is finding her next direction through the people, places and creative possibilities around her.

A horse and trap are taking shape in a painting beside Curly Bap. Working from an old photograph for her uncle, she is taking her time with the image, allowing herself to build towards the finished piece. The subject carries a family connection: horses were part of her father’s life, and animals have always been present in her own. At home, there are nine dogs. Making portraits of other people’s animals feels like a natural extension of that familiarity.

Her rural upbringing also gave Croob View Creations its name, taken from the landscape around Slieve Croob where she grew up. Now living in Belfast, she misses the view at home: trees, green fields and an outlook uninterrupted by large buildings. The countryside remains close to her sense of herself, even as the city brings new friendships and opportunities to make work.

Pet portraits began before university, through family and friends who knew she could draw. Requests arrived by word of mouth, often through her mother, and gave her a way to make something meaningful for another person.

That pleasure in creating for others has been there since primary school, when classmates would queue beside her while she made little paper crafts for them.

“I’ve always wanted to make things for people,” she says.

Two Sides of a Practice

Croob View Creations became a more formal undertaking during an Enterprise Placement Year at Ulster University. The programme offered funding and support to develop a business, bringing her into contact with people pursuing ventures in very different fields. Alongside creative businesses were others focused on fitness, hospitality and beauty. It was a chance to see how people approached the practical demands of working for themselves.

The year taught her about priorities, planning and the realities of running a business. It also helped her understand what she wanted to keep separate. Croob View Creations could provide commissioned portraits for people who wanted their pets represented on paper, while Curly Bap would give her somewhere to pursue ideas without first deciding whether somebody else would want them.

“Curly Bap is for me.”

There is room for both approaches in her practice, although bringing them together in a manageable way is still something she is working out. After an intense four years at university, she is allowing herself time to find a rhythm that can accommodate paid work, commissions and the things she wants to make simply because they interest her.

Trying Another Material

Acrylic is the material she returns to most readily. It is familiar from school, and it gave her a dependable starting point before university encouraged her to try other ways of making.

That encouragement to experiment became one of the most valuable parts of studying. A process she initially resisted could turn out to be something she enjoyed, provided she gave herself the opportunity to discover it.

“I love to dip my hands into any medium that I can,” she says.

Watercolour, textiles and ceramics offer different possibilities, while working in three dimensions is something she wants to explore further. Having several options can be exciting and difficult at once: deciding whether to paint, work with clay or begin something else can become a task of its own.

She is particularly interested in paper mechanics and would like to make a pop-up book.

Small exercises have already given her a taste of what can happen when a flat page becomes a structure that moves. It is one of the ideas she wanted to develop at university but could not fit into the available time, as larger ambitions had to be adjusted to meet approaching deadlines.

The materials themselves do not have to be expensive to offer a beginning. When she started university, she was still using inexpensive paints bought from a high-street shop. They required patience, but they worked.

Her enthusiasm for making comes with an appreciation of how much can be tried with what is already available, before a person has every tool or material they might eventually want.

A Name That Feels Like Her

Curly Bap began with a nickname from her mother, inspired by her curly hair. It offered a more playful identity than the professional-sounding account name she had used before, and something that felt closer to the person making the work. The dot in her Instagram handle came from the practical discovery that the name was already taken.

Having fun matters to her approach to making art. The name gives her room for that enjoyment, without making every experiment feel like a formal declaration of what kind of artist she has to be. It can accommodate a changing practice, allowing her to try things before she knows exactly where they will lead.

Her interest in street art also developed through another artist. Studying alongside DUBH (formerly known as FÉOIL) in her final year, she admired how closely their work expressed their identity and their relationship with the world. Their enthusiasm encouraged her to get involved herself. She recognises a different tendency in her own approach:

“I’m observing the world around me. I like bringing that into myself.”

The things she notices, and the people she encounters, become material she can draw from.

A House Full Of Illustration

Living with other illustrators has given Curly Bap a setting where making is understood as part of everyday life. There is room to work, relax and draw, and the walls hold pieces by friends. Their different styles sit together around the house, providing regular reminders of what people she knows are capable of creating.

“We love being surrounded by it,” she says. Seeing their work makes her want to return to her own. The same response happens in galleries, where the encounter with something another person has made can turn admiration into the urge to begin.

“I can see my future,” she says, “and it’s bright”.

Leaving university means losing the structure that once supplied the next brief and the next deadline. It also opens up time in which a project does not have to fit an assessment. Curly Bap is beginning to work out how to create that structure for herself, while keeping the friendships and exchanges that made the classroom such a stimulating place to be.

Finding People Through Art

Markets offer another kind of exchange, and one she is keen to return to. She enjoys meeting people, discussing what she makes and hearing about their work in turn. Six years in retail have given her confidence in talking to customers, a skill she brings to presenting her own creations with humour and enthusiasm.

That pleasure in conversation extends to Belfast’s galleries and creative spaces. A visit to Pigment Space brought a succession of introductions, with people sharing opinions about what was on the walls and asking about one another’s lives. She values the ease with which a common interest can begin a conversation, and the welcome she has found in those settings.

“There’s such a strong art scene, but I just don’t think it gets appreciated enough,” she says. Late Night Art is something she regularly tells people about, including taxi drivers who usually, despite it’s popularity, still haven’t heard of it. She wants more people to know they can visit exhibitions, encounter work and meet others without feeling that the arts are a closed world.

The availability of places to gather matters to her. As more social activities involve spending money, she appreciates opportunities to enter a space and enjoy somebody else’s company without that being the main requirement.

Art can provide the reason to go somewhere alone and still find a person to talk to. Her enthusiasm is for the work itself and for the connections that become possible around it.

Now It Is Her Turn

The immediate challenge is making room for her own practice alongside earning a living. Having recently graduated, Curly Bap is working and saving so that she can give herself more time to create. There are plenty of ideas; putting the first mark on paper can be harder than imagining the possibilities.

She is giving herself permission to take time after university, rather than expecting the next stage to arrive fully formed. Markets, three-dimensional work and a pop-up book all offer directions she could follow. What matters now is finding the project she wants to begin for herself, with enough freedom to enjoy making it.

“I’ve spent years making art for other people,” she says. “I love gift giving. I love making for other people. But now it’s my turn to make stuff for myself that I enjoy.”

That generosity remains part of her work, carried through portraits, friendships and her eagerness to bring people into the arts. She is beginning to give her own ideas some of the attention she has so readily offered to others.

For commission enquiries, get in touch with Curly Bap through Croob View Creations: @croobviewcreations

And keep up with her via social media: @curly.bap

Support Go Leor. Get the Print. Join the Story.

Go Leor is an independent Irish arts magazine built by hand, heart, and community. Your support keeps meaningful storytelling alive – in print, in culture, and in conversation.

Through Patreon, you can support the magazine in two simple ways:

Supporter Listing
Have your name printed inside every issue as part of the community helping Go Leor grow.
Print Copy – UK & Ireland
Receive the latest print issue delivered each month across the UK and Ireland, with your name included inside the magazine.