Séamus Kealy is an award-winning international museum and gallery director, curator, and artist. Séamus Kealy has curated over 120 international exhibitions and has founded festivals, artist residencies and artist awards. Known for his artist-focused, innovative and collaborative curating and his transformative approach to directing institutions, he has over two decades of international experience in the art world. He is currently Executive Director of Oakville Galleries in Canada where he is leading a capital project and curating exhibitions by international artists, including Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Tarik Kiswanson and Charles Stankievech, and continues to artistically direct Sunset Kino. From 2014 to 2023, he was Director of the Salzburger Kunstverein in Austria where he produced one of Europe’s leading contemporary art programs, including producing a new film by Omer Fast, leading a Europe-wide tour of Stan Douglas’ work and founding the world’s first outdoor, avant-garde cinema, Sunset Kino (pictured on the homepage). From 2008 to 2013, he was Director of The Model, Sligo, Ireland, which he led through a major redevelopment and transformed into a multi-disciplinary institution. From 2005 to 2008, he was Curator at the Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Canada, where he realised award-winning exhibitions 18:Beckett and Signals in the Dark: Art in the Shadow of War, among others. He has lectured at universities world-wide, including as Visiting Lecturer for the Higher Institute for Visual Arts in Ghent, Belgium. He has held artist and curatorial residencies in Canada, Chile, Ireland, Austria, and France. Awards and acknowledgements include the “Top Ten Exhibitions World-Wide” (Frieze Magazine, 2024, Elif Saydam, curator T. Wang), "Top Exhibition in Austria” in 2014 (Punctum), "List of Top Ten Exhibitions in Austria” in 2016, (The People’s Cinema); both by Profil Magazine, the Curatorial Writing Award in 2007 by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries, “Top Ten List of Exhibitions of 2007 (Canada)” (Unterspiel) by Canadian Art Magazine, as well as finalist for the Lexmark Pan-European Painting Prize (2004), and finalist for the RBC National Painting Award in Canada (2002). In 2018, he was International Juror for Canada’s Sobey Art Award. He studied Fine Arts (BFA), including photography, under Jeff Wall, and later Art History: Curatorial Studies (MA) at the University of British Columbia. His writing is published internationally, including a chapter in the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Contemporary Painting.