Artworks spread throughout the Irish Architectural Archive begin with the story of the Valentia Island tetrapod, our amphibian ancestor who made the first footprints ever recorded on land. The exhibition is the culmination of Bryony Dunne’s year-long research and production residency organised by Askeaton Contemporary Arts.
Join for an exhibition tour and guided walk on Thursday April 24 at 4pm.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Dundalk Photographic Society were formed in 1979. From the start the Society has been affiliated to the Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) and has taken part in and indeed hosted many regional and national events. Dundalk Photographic Society have published a limited edition book entitled “Dundalk Photographic Society, Celebrating 40 Years: The Art of Photography” in November of that year. The book featured over 200 images from members of the club.
Image:David Martin, Titled ‘Kylemore Tree’, winner of last year’s exhibition and DPS’s image of the year.

Feltmakers Ireland presents ‘Water and Flow’, a group exhibition featuring over 50 members exploring water through felt. From gentle streams to powerful oceans, the show reflects water’s energy, stillness, renewal, and emotional depth—from joy to sorrow. Works include sculpture, wall art, and wearable pieces using diverse felting techniques.

Launched by knitwear designer Conor O’Brien on 4 April at 3 PM, the exhibition runs 2–26 April at Phoenix Park Visitor Centre Gallery. Poster artwork: Waterfall by Joanne Turner.

Signal Arts Centre is proud to host Woven Reflections, a solo-exhibition by textile artist Ann Mechelinck. ‘Woven reflections’ offers the audience a tactile and immersive series of wall-hangings in predominantly green colours creating a calming, soothing atmosphere in the gallery. Each piece is created through the slow and repetitive processes of weaving, crochet and embroidery, that the artist says, allows her the time to reflect, to contemplate and meditate, away from a world that often doesn’t make sense.

OPENING: 19TH APRIL 3-5PM

This exhibition of paintings and mixed-media sculptures by Bennie Reilly draws on her interest in museum collections, natural history, and her own interactions with the natural world. Her paintings stem from an ever growing archive of personal photographs, while her sculptural works combine bric-a-brac and natural artefacts collected over many years. Together, these artworks celebrate the oddities and allure of nature and its positive impact on our well-being.
The title derives from graffiti Reilly saw in a derelict hut overlooking a scenic salt lake in Formentera: “Follow your dream.” I

In 2013, the Living Arts Project was established as an artist-in-residency scheme in primary schools. The aim of the project is to provide children with an understanding and appreciation of contemporary visual art. The exhibition represents a selection of work produced by the participating schools.

The artists and schools selected for the 2025-26 programme were Sonya Weston and Kate Tyrrell with Castlebridge NS, Deirdre Meehan-Buttimer and Shannon Jade Wilson with Clonroche NS, David Begley and Hanneke van Ryswyk with Curracloe NS, and Laura Flood and Mayumi Nakabayashi in Scoil Mhaodhóig.

Curated by Aisling Prior

Featuring 26 emerging artists with a Fingal connection, part of a series of initiatives for artists to mark Draíocht’s 25th Birthday.

Maria Atanacković | Maya Brezing | Lucy Carrick | Matthew Coll | Michael Shane Cox | Alex De Roeck | Aideen Farrell | Chris Forrester | Andrew Grace | Elizabeth Hogan | Uisce Jakubczyk | Sinead Kampff | Paula Leimane | Nathan Lowry | Nicole Manning | Justine McDonnell | James McLoughlin | Sorca O’Farrell | Kerrie O’Leary | Eileen O’Sullivan | Jack Pierce | Eileen Sealy | Annette Treacy | Aoife Ward | Catherine Ward | Diarmuid Woodcock.

Irish painter Kevin McAleenan presents Moment, a new solo exhibition at Sol Art. Rooted in fleeting encounters with landscape and everyday life, the work begins with instinctive sketches and photographs before being fully realised in the studio through a process of layering, removal and overpainting. Moving between realism and abstraction, McAleenan’s paintings are structured by balanced colour and rhythm, yet retain a calm presence. A professional artist for over 25 years, his work is held in major public and private collections. The exhibition opens on 23 April, with an opening evening at Sol Art where the artist will speak about the work.

Exhibition continues from 21/02/2026 to 03/05/2026.

Butler Gallery is pleased to present I Took a Hammer in My Hand, a new installation of photographic works and sculpture by Northern Ireland-based artist Jan McCullough. Artworks in this exhibition explore the boundaries between amateur and professional; image and object; and photography’s role in looking, learning and representing collaborative labour.

Exhibition continues from 13/03/2026 to 03/05/2026.

Lucy Stein’s expressive, emotionally and psychologically charged paintings result from what the artist describes as a ‘cosmic symbolic feminist headspace’. Her work has a deep connection to the principles and imagery of goddess culture and mystical esotericism stemming from her studies in psychoanalysis and feminist theory. Iconography from classical mythology, medieval and ecclesiastical illuminations, as well as ancient rites and folkloric illustrations interact on her paintings’ amorphous surfaces.

Sylvia Hill presents- Vintage Suite – a collection of paintings exploring the beauty of the Irish “Big House” and other interiors relating to the past. Using a rich and vibrant oil palette, she indulges our senses and imaginations suggesting themes to dream on such as nostalgia, comfort, loss and fantasy. These small works offer us a personal window into the beauty of the past and a plea for the preservation of all things antique for the future.

Exhibition continues from 03/03/2026 to 08/05/2026.

Meath County Council Arts Office presents ‘Wildlife Encounters Through the Lens’ an exhibition of work by award winning photographer Tom Ormond.
Wildlife Encounters Through the Lens showcases the variety and beauty of some of the birds and animals that award-winning photographer Tom Ormond has encountered along his way.
Tom Ormond took up nature photography a few years ago, and since then he has had some of the most amazing experiences both observing and photographing wildlife.
Half of the images in this exhibition were photographed in his garden in Meath and the other half further afield in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.

IMMA Collection: Art as Agency is a major three-year display celebrating IMMA’s Permanent Collection as a source of agency and knowledge. Featuring over 100 artists, from the 1960s to the present, it highlights key works, including many recent acquisitions. This ambitious exhibition invites engagement and research over time, allowing for a rich durational experience of Ireland’s Modern and Contemporary Art Collection.

Through thematic, chronological, geographical, and media-based approaches, the exhibition examines how artworks connect across time and contexts, fostering new interpretations and relevance. Works from the 1960s to the 1980s evoke the foundational story of the Irish art world. While acknowledging the context of the modernist, predominantly male dominance of that era, the exhibition also spotlights the material innovation and socially engaged practices of others who persisted despite the relatively conservative status quo.

The exhibition also presents more recent practice that explores urgent global themes such as gender, hybridity, cultural histories, de-colonialism, diaspora, migration, food injustice, climate, and ecological change. Memory, imagination, and storytelling play pivotal roles in these works, offering generative ways to process fragmentation, dislocation, and survival in unfamiliar spaces. New and existing works in the IMMA grounds will extend these themes.

The exhibition includes a specially created ‘white cube’ gallery space inspired by Brian O’Doherty’s renowned series of essays Inside the White Cube – The Ideology of the Gallery Space (1976), that critiques the auratic, market-driven effects of the white cube gallery format. Likewise the choice of works curated for this space pushes back by highlighting works by Post-War American women, pioneering conceptualist artworks by Marcel Duchamp and Brian O’Doherty as well as a contemporary feminist response by Andrea Geyer.

By interweaving historical and contemporary narratives, Art as Agency invites audiences to reflect on the evolving meanings and possibilities of art in shaping our understanding of and action in the world.

This is the first solo exhibition by renowned artist, poet and activist Cecilia Vicuña in Ireland. For this exhibition Vicuña’s delves into themes of ancestry, ecological urgency, and the interconnectedness of humanity inspired by the discovery of her ancient ties to Ireland.

Pallas Projects/Studios are delighted to announce the participating artists in our Arts Council funded programme of Artist-Initiated Projects 2026. The series will be part of a programme celebrating 30 years of Pallas Projects/Studios. Between January–December 2026 we will present 8 x 3-week exhibitions of new work by:

Paddy Critchley, Fiona Marron, Finn Nichol, Emma Brennan and Thomas Wells, Ciara Rodgers, Struàn Bell, Christopher Mahon, neonatus.exe

VISUAL is pleased to present DRILL, newly commissioned exhibition of moving image and sound installation by Naomi Sex. Working with both professional and non-actors, Sex has written and directed a series of scripted performances. These vignettes consider language, social interaction, absurdity and the limits of understanding. DRILL comprises a series of monitors, speakers and projectors, which present each piece as distinct but interrelated episodes, linked to each other in an installation that places the viewer in the centre of the work.

VISUAL is pleased to present Interloper, the first project by Anne Hardy in Ireland. For this exhibition of existing and newly commissioned works, Hardy has responded to the distinct architecture of VISUAL; the concrete and glass of the Link Gallery and its connection to the ornamental pond seen through the large windows, and the blank canvas of the Studio Gallery’s white cube design and its heavily patinated floor. Interloper marks a continued evolution in Hardy’s practice.

“Now now” by Andy Fitz uses language to record a passing moment in time. An out-of-date present is rearranged in minute detail as though the process might reveal something. Time remains static – the food never grows mouldy. Unremarkable domestic objects are balanced across the gallery in precarious abstraction from their usual surroundings. “Now now” is also a phrase whose function and meaning is dependent on tone; it can be understood as a warning, or a consolation. The sculptures build on these unresolved tensions; the personal in the political, the present in light of the past.

This exhibition of paintings and mixed-media sculptures by Bennie Reilly draws on her interest in museum collections, natural history, and her own interactions with the natural world. Her paintings stem from an ever growing archive of personal photographs, while her sculptural works combine bric-a-brac and natural artefacts collected over many years. Together, these artworks celebrate the oddities and allure of nature and its positive impact on our well-being.
The title derives from graffiti Reilly saw in a derelict hut overlooking a scenic salt lake in Formentera: “Follow your dream.” I

Curated by Aisling Prior

Featuring 26 emerging artists with a Fingal connection, part of a series of initiatives for artists to mark Draíocht’s 25th Birthday.

Maria Atanacković | Maya Brezing | Lucy Carrick | Matthew Coll | Michael Shane Cox | Alex De Roeck | Aideen Farrell | Chris Forrester | Andrew Grace | Elizabeth Hogan | Uisce Jakubczyk | Sinead Kampff | Paula Leimane | Nathan Lowry | Nicole Manning | Justine McDonnell | James McLoughlin | Sorca O’Farrell | Kerrie O’Leary | Eileen O’Sullivan | Jack Pierce | Eileen Sealy | Annette Treacy | Aoife Ward | Catherine Ward | Diarmuid Woodcock.

Exhibition continues from 03/03/2026 to 08/05/2026.

Meath County Council Arts Office presents ‘Wildlife Encounters Through the Lens’ an exhibition of work by award winning photographer Tom Ormond.
Wildlife Encounters Through the Lens showcases the variety and beauty of some of the birds and animals that award-winning photographer Tom Ormond has encountered along his way.
Tom Ormond took up nature photography a few years ago, and since then he has had some of the most amazing experiences both observing and photographing wildlife.
Half of the images in this exhibition were photographed in his garden in Meath and the other half further afield in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.

Sylvia Hill presents- Vintage Suite – a collection of paintings exploring the beauty of the Irish “Big House” and other interiors relating to the past. Using a rich and vibrant oil palette, she indulges our senses and imaginations suggesting themes to dream on such as nostalgia, comfort, loss and fantasy. These small works offer us a personal window into the beauty of the past and a plea for the preservation of all things antique for the future.

Exhibition continues from 21/02/2026 to 03/05/2026.

Butler Gallery is pleased to present I Took a Hammer in My Hand, a new installation of photographic works and sculpture by Northern Ireland-based artist Jan McCullough. Artworks in this exhibition explore the boundaries between amateur and professional; image and object; and photography’s role in looking, learning and representing collaborative labour.

A major solo exhibition by internationally recognised photographer Jackie Nickerson, Stateside draws on a decade of travel across the United States. Through layered photographic compositions, the exhibition explores patterns of sameness across different American landscapes, offering a nuanced reflection on the systems that shape everyday life.

Exhibition continues from 27/03/2026 to 10/05/2026.

Before I Go: Vanishing Dublin, gathers over fifty characteristically Dublin cityscapes by Gerard Byrne — Georgian terraces, Victorian facades, charming pubs, and beloved corners that continue to define his practice. Working en plein air in both oil and charcoal, Byrne captures architecture and atmosphere in equal measure, incidentally continuing the work of Harry Kernoff and Flora Mitchell, exemplified in her book Vanishing Dublin (1966). 60 years on, he faces the same conviction that what is not recorded is lost forever.

Before I go, before you go, I’ll make sure someone remembers.

In 2013, the Living Arts Project was established as an artist-in-residency scheme in primary schools. The aim of the project is to provide children with an understanding and appreciation of contemporary visual art. The exhibition represents a selection of work produced by the participating schools.

The artists and schools selected for the 2025-26 programme were Sonya Weston and Kate Tyrrell with Castlebridge NS, Deirdre Meehan-Buttimer and Shannon Jade Wilson with Clonroche NS, David Begley and Hanneke van Ryswyk with Curracloe NS, and Laura Flood and Mayumi Nakabayashi in Scoil Mhaodhóig.

Exhibition continues from 13/03/2026 to 03/05/2026.

Lucy Stein’s expressive, emotionally and psychologically charged paintings result from what the artist describes as a ‘cosmic symbolic feminist headspace’. Her work has a deep connection to the principles and imagery of goddess culture and mystical esotericism stemming from her studies in psychoanalysis and feminist theory. Iconography from classical mythology, medieval and ecclesiastical illuminations, as well as ancient rites and folkloric illustrations interact on her paintings’ amorphous surfaces.

Feltmakers Ireland presents ‘Water and Flow’, a group exhibition featuring over 50 members exploring water through felt. From gentle streams to powerful oceans, the show reflects water’s energy, stillness, renewal, and emotional depth—from joy to sorrow. Works include sculpture, wall art, and wearable pieces using diverse felting techniques.

Launched by knitwear designer Conor O’Brien on 4 April at 3 PM, the exhibition runs 2–26 April at Phoenix Park Visitor Centre Gallery. Poster artwork: Waterfall by Joanne Turner.

Official opening Saturday 4th April at 3pm by Carmel Duffy, Athlone Arts & Tourism Manager

Pause is a body of work by Hilary Kinahan, a visual artist based in the Midlands working from her home studio. The exhibition responds to recent bog fires and their impact on the local landscape, documenting the scorched land through painting and printmaking.

Created as a meditative series, the works invite viewers to slow down and reflect. The series includes sonographs of birdsong, signalling renewal and the gradual return of life to the damaged boglands.

Runs until Saturday 27th June

Curated by Benjamin Stafford

Official Reception Friday 1st May, 2.30pm

KCAT is a multi-disciplinary arts centre located in Callan, Co. Kilkenny, supporting inclusive arts practices, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2025.
Here, things are not easily categorised or separated from each other; common songbirds sit alongside five-legged cats, which sit alongside distant countries, rural landscapes, intimate portraits, and science-fiction worlds. These exist in the minds of some of the artists, but the ongoing success and resilience of KCAT shows that with work, dedication, and care, sometimes other worlds can become real.

Dundalk Photographic Society were formed in 1979. From the start the Society has been affiliated to the Irish Photographic Federation (IPF) and has taken part in and indeed hosted many regional and national events. Dundalk Photographic Society have published a limited edition book entitled “Dundalk Photographic Society, Celebrating 40 Years: The Art of Photography” in November of that year. The book featured over 200 images from members of the club.
Image:David Martin, Titled ‘Kylemore Tree’, winner of last year’s exhibition and DPS’s image of the year.

Boy Dancer is a Solstice commissioned collaboration between poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin and artist Niamh McCann. Blending poetry, drawing, sound and sculpture. It reflects on grief, ritual and remembrance, inspired by Ní Churreáin’s foster brother. Accompanying the exhibition, Solstice Arts Centre is hosting an opening event on April 11th at 2.30 PM, a special public conversation featuring Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Niamh McCann, and poet and critic Gerard Smyth. This event offers audiences a rare opportunity to hear directly from the collaborators about the creative process behind Boy Dancer.

Exhibition continues from 07/04/2026 to 31/05/2026.

We are delighted to have Daniel Chester exhibit in our Easter Snow Gallery. Daniel is a visual artist based in County Leitrim. His exhibition “Bog To Bloom” is a body of paintings that are inspired by the landscapes of rural Leitrim, Fermanagh, Sligo and Donegal. The Artist invites viewers into these spaces to engage with the works. The artist is highly influenced by the ecology of these wetlands and how they are vital carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots, yet, these places are often undervalued and threatened. This exhibition can be viewed in full online at www.tseac.ie or at our gallery.

Signal Arts Centre is proud to host Woven Reflections, a solo-exhibition by textile artist Ann Mechelinck. ‘Woven reflections’ offers the audience a tactile and immersive series of wall-hangings in predominantly green colours creating a calming, soothing atmosphere in the gallery. Each piece is created through the slow and repetitive processes of weaving, crochet and embroidery, that the artist says, allows her the time to reflect, to contemplate and meditate, away from a world that often doesn’t make sense.

OPENING: 19TH APRIL 3-5PM

Exhibition continues from 11/04/2026 to 09/05/2026.

Wandering Star is a reference to the physics of light and celestial mechanics, and also a nod to an artistic journey over the decades through the indeterminacy of painting. Joyce uses an arc motif, an elemental unit of human invention and expression, with oblique reference to early human structures, manuscripts and notations, or, as the artist likes to say, ‘stuff holding stuff up’. From a rhythmic and mechanical foundation, a bending of the light, familiar, like the Rings of Saturn, or the passing lights on the nearby orbital motorway, errors accumulate, an entropic unspooling, fragmenting towards chaos and disorder.

Following the success of Art Evolve, we are delighted to announce What Happens Next, a compelling new group exhibition bringing together a dynamic selection of contemporary artists.

“Of the Earth” – A Three-Person Exhibition at Glass Attic Gallery, Jerpoint Glasss Studios, Kilkenny Of the Earth, a three-person exhibition featuring the paintings of Debra Bowden, Ross Stewart, and Krisztina Rozanich, opening on Friday, April 17th at 6pm at the Glass Attic Gallery, Glenmore, Stonyford, Co. Kilkenny (R95 WN67). The exhibition will be opened by Sue Nunn and runs Monday to Saturday, 10am–5pm.
Of the Earth brings together three distinct yet deeply interconnected artistic practices, each grounded in a shared engagement with landscape, material, and the passage of time.

Exhibition continues from 03/04/2026 to 14/06/2026.

Visit the Spring Exhibitions at The Douglas Hyde by artists Abbas Zahedi and Bushra Mustafa Dunne, on now until Sunday 14 June 2026. ⁠EX/IT: LIFT is the first solo exhibition in Ireland by artist Abbas Zahedi whose work centres on reciprocity, renewal, social connection, and care. With a background in medicine and training in psychiatry, Zahedi brings scientific, philosophical, and poetic insights to bear on fixed narratives around art, history, and institutional life.⁠ In this instalment of The Artist’s Eye series, Zahedi has invited poet Bushra Mustafa Dunne to write and record a new text.⁠

Luan Gallery presents Divergent Lines, a multidisciplinary group exhibition featuring new and existing work by Brian Fay, Felicity Clear, Lelia Henry, Kiera O’Toole, Mary-Ruth Walsh and Michael Wann.
Opens to the public on 22 April, with the official launch taking place on Saturday, 25 April at 3pm with guest speaker Sarah Searson, Curator.
Divergent Lines is a multidisciplinary group exhibition exploring the potential of drawing across a diverse range of artistic practices and mediums, with a focus on abstracted methods of mark-making and the phenomenological exploration of line in space. The exhibition will run until 21 June.

UNDERGROUND is a recognition and celebration of existence beneath the surface. Informed by Irish Vampiric Mythologies, this exhibition entangles underground cultures, Queer infrastructures, and the quiet, regenerating presence of the vampire.

Paying homage to Drag as a resilient political power, the exhibition features a performative film set within soil; the living, renewing, connective tissue, humanised and tenderised by processes of decay.

This exhibition is the culmination of work produced by Kat Lalor during their artist residency as part of our We Only Want the Earth Programme.

Irish painter Kevin McAleenan presents Moment, a new solo exhibition at Sol Art. Rooted in fleeting encounters with landscape and everyday life, the work begins with instinctive sketches and photographs before being fully realised in the studio through a process of layering, removal and overpainting. Moving between realism and abstraction, McAleenan’s paintings are structured by balanced colour and rhythm, yet retain a calm presence. A professional artist for over 25 years, his work is held in major public and private collections. The exhibition opens on 23 April, with an opening evening at Sol Art where the artist will speak about the work.

Artworks spread throughout the Irish Architectural Archive begin with the story of the Valentia Island tetrapod, our amphibian ancestor who made the first footprints ever recorded on land. The exhibition is the culmination of Bryony Dunne’s year-long research and production residency organised by Askeaton Contemporary Arts.
Join for an exhibition tour and guided walk on Thursday April 24 at 4pm.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh