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A horror-music composer, aerial circus performer, prosthetic make-up artist and prop-maker are among the 292 artists to receive investment from the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

The funding will provide vital support to individual artists working across all disciplines including theatre, visual arts, dance, traditional arts, music and community arts.

Artists awarded grants through the Arts Council’s Support for Individual Artists Programme General Art Awards will receive up to a maximum of £6,000 each. This funding investment will be used to develop new creative projects and purchase equipment, as well as grants to support international performance opportunities and residencies.

Gilly Campbell, joint Director of Arts Development, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, commented: "Individual artists are at the very heart of the creative sector in Northern Ireland, enriching our communities and bringing our theatres, music venues and galleries to life. Thanks to National Lottery players and money raised for good causes, funding from the Arts Council’s Support for Individual Artists Programme will provide artists, working across all areas of the arts, with the vital investment they need to embark on new projects, develop their ideas and find new and engaging ways to present their art.”

Rostrevor-based poet CsillaToldy will explore themes of identity, the life of artists and social issues of poverty and migration in a new work, which has received support from the Arts Council's Support for Individual Artists Programme.

General Arts Awards are one element of the Arts Council’s Support for Individual Artists Programme (SIAP). Its aim is to support artists living and working across Northern Ireland to create work and develop their practice. Broadly, awards can be for specific projects, specialised research or personal artistic development.

Now based in Rostrevor, CsillaToldy, who was awarded £5,220, is a prize-winning writer and poet, originally from Czechia. Her short-stories, poetry and fiction writing have garnered much success, widely published in notable collections, journals and magazines.

Funding from the Arts Council will help support the creation of a new work in the form of prose poems that will relate to place as well as the metaphor of breath expanding out to the universal and human. Within the work, Csilla will explore themes of identity, the life of artists and social issues of poverty and migration.

Rostrevor poet among 292 artists awarded funding from the Arts Council and National Lottery