Ormston House in collaboration with EVA International presents Bíodh Orm Anocht. The exhibition will run from 29 August to 26 October.

Bíodh Orm Anocht, roughly translating to ‘be with me tonight’, is a group exhibition featuring new and existing artworks by four artists – Seán Hannan, Laura Ní Fhlaibhín, Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh, and Kiera O’Toole – presented at Ormston House and off-site locations. While the contributors work across media and processes, they are unified by a preoccupation with customs and practices that can broadly be described as folk knowledge. These methods and intuitive systems challenge technorational systems of thought.

These four artists convey knowledge that transcends language and which is all the more potent because it remains unwritten and unspoken. Each artist is concerned with the metaphorical qualities of materials. They draw from disciplines outside the visual arts (including mythology, zoology, and cartography), infusing them with personal meaning. Inherent in these works is the possibility that atavistic wisdom may be sourced from the natural world.

Seán Hannan‘s work explores how forgotten voices and rituals can echo into the future, both through unstable technologies and systems of collaboration. Using archival fragments from autobiographical memories referring to Irish traditions, Hannan’s artworks reflect obsolescence and poetic instability. Received at the Graveyard is a sonic installation revolving around an evolving voice AI (artificial intelligence). At its core lies a handful of field recordings made in Ireland in the 1950s that captured the final traces of a near-extinct tradition, keening (caoineadh). Another work featured in this exhibition is LUCK (2022), a sculpture in the form of a piseóg (pish-ohg): folk witchcraft. Mainly a phenomenon of rural Ireland, piseógs were cast as an act of malice, often using a chicken egg onto which a curse had been placed.

In contrast, Laura Ní Fhlaibhín employs materials which have traditionally been connected with healing and nourishment. Sifting stories and traces associated with site, memory, and the casting of spells, Ní Fhlaibhín creates complex but delicate sculptural scenarios. She frequently introduces living beings into white cube environments that are typically purposed for the display of inanimate objects. While previous artworks have involved earthworms, leopard slugs, and willow trees, the family of sculptural assemblages presented here are made from chunks of mineral salt and ash wood. The creation of these sculptures has involved the co-authorship of horses, who have licked the salt crystals into biomorphic forms. The ash tree is sacred in Irish mythology and is seen as possessing talismanic power.

The equine kingdom is also referred to in the cosmological work of Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh. His Speculative massage tools for a family of Donkeys (2022) incorporates massage tools for these domesticated creatures. Other works by Ó Dochartaigh presented at Ormston House include a rendering in glazed ceramics of the artist’s late father’s stomach. A stacked edition of printed drawings link the ecological decline of fish species with medical modifications of the human body, Irish history, and the legacies of British colonialism.

Preparation for this project has entailed site visits and open-ended fieldwork across graveyards, the River Shannon, fish shops, and city streets. This is best exemplified in the work of Kiera O’Toole, whose practice involves derivés of everyday public spaces, in this case Limerick city centre. Through drawing in-situ, O’Toole records the subtle energies of these locations (which she describes as spatialised emotions) and translates her pre-reflective, sensory encounters into topographical maps and charts that she describes as ‘affective cartographies’.

The exhibition takes its name from a traditional Irish song first transcribed by the Irish Folklore Commission in 1936. The song is essentially a piece of mouth music or lilting in which melody and rhythm take precedence over lyrical content. Before being preserved via the written word, ‘Bíodh Orm Anocht’ was conveyed orally down through generations and was therefore altered over time. In the few recordings that are available (such as Mick Hanly and Micheál O Domhnaill’s 1974 album Celtic Folkweave), the singer’s words hover between possibilities of lyrical meaning, pitch, and rhythm. In this way, the song is a vehicle for forms of expression that transcend time and language and which are an outcome of communal rather than individual authorship.

This exhibition is accompanied by a programme of events:

-On Saturday, 30 August from 12–1pm, Seán Hannan will join us for an artist talk and a wireless broadcast of Received at the Graveyeard. Meet at Ormston House, followed by a five-minute walk to St. Michael’s Graveyard. This event will have limited accessibility due to steps and uneven ground.
-On Friday, 19 September, we will be joined from 5–6pm by Historian-in-Residence Sharon Slater for a talk and walk about the history of St. Michael’s Graveyard. This talk will have limited accessibility due to steps and uneven ground. The exhibition will also remain open until 9pm as part of Culture Night 2025.
-On Friday, 26 September, 6–8pm, we will be joined for an artist talk with Laura NíFhlaibhín and tactile workshop with equine therapist Muriel Foxton. Free tickets can be booked here.
-On Saturday, 27 September from 2–4pm, artist Kiera O’Toole will lead a participatory drawing workshop. Through gestural drawing exercises, participants will map the energies and atmospheres of Limerick city. Meet at Ormston House, followed by a walk to city centre sites. Materials will be provided. Capacity is limited, so book here to avoid disappointment.

Artist biographies:

Seán Hannan lives and works in Amsterdam and graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam in 2009. His work has been shown in numerous art venues such as the RU exhibition space, New York; Upstream gallery, Amsterdam; and Hotel Maria Kapel in Hoorn. Hannan participated in Unfair16. He has also received numerous project grants from the Amsterdam fund for the arts (AFK).

Laura Ní Fhlaibhín is an artist from Wexford. She completed her MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2019 with Distinction and her BA at National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2013. She is the recipient of the National College of Art and Design, Dublin Staff Prize Bursary; the Goldsmiths Graduate Almacantar Bursary 2019; the Arts Council of Ireland Next Generation Award 2020; the Arts Council England Developing Creative Practice Award 2021; and Arts Council of Ireland Bursaries.

Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh is an artist, researcher, and Gaeilgeoir from Derry, living and working with chronic illness. His mixed-media practice explores complexities inherent within the embodiment of personal loss with the legacy of political violence and lived experience. He is interested in combining industrial manufacturing processes with the materialities of artisanal craft objects to create a specific language of sculptural works.

Kiera O’Toole is a research-based visual artist and lecturer at ATU Sligo. Her practice explores drawing as a method of registering the spatialised emotions of place, blending phenomenology and atmospheric theory. O’Toole exhibits internationally and publishes widely on contemporary drawing. She is a professional member of Visual Artists Ireland and the Drawing Research Network (UK), and she is a co-founder of Drawing deCentered. She currently lives and works in Sligo, Ireland.

The exhibition is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Limerick Arts Office. The events programme is funded by Creative Ireland and Limerick City and County Council through Limerick Creative Communities Small Grants Scheme 2025. Seán Hannan’s participation in this exhibition is partly made possible by the Mondriaan Fund, the public fund for visual art and cultural heritage in the Netherlands.

Blue Skies, Black Earth: A solo exhibition by Deirdre Frost at GOMA Gallery of Modern Art Waterford | Running from 30 August – 27 September 2025

Official launch: Saturday 30 August 4–6pm at GOMA Waterford. All are welcome!

The Earth, locus of growth and renewal, is the inspiration behind this new body of oil paintings on canvas and on wood by Deirdre Frost.

The works consider rootedness and displacement, alongside the innate instinct in all living things to grow, to thrive, to flourish, to reach upward. The paintings attempt to capture the experience of living in this world – a fragmented, complicated place of growth and collapse, influenced by a multitude of opaque and complex human agendas. Buildings, split open under construction or under dereliction, reverberate of our time of great need for safe homes globally. A space to thrive; a world where the plants and soil itself is under pressure due to excess human activity.

Vignettes depict scenes of captured beauty and simplicity, much like an endeavour to simplify and structure our lives and desires, while the box like structures that contain these snapshots split and crack. Oil painting on canvas rooted on the floor draws the viewer in to its dark vortex as prickly plants reach from the depths, a visceral reminder of what is beneath our feet. Sea thrift drifting through a triptych give a sense a floating free, uprooted, adrift and floating like seeds through the air while soft bog cotton blows above collapsed slabs on a shore.

In line with works such as Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital, which presents our blue world spinning serenely through black space as we live out our small and larger dramas, this body of work flips our perspective. Created from the ground, and drawing on local imagery of the natural and built environments, these paintings unfold against the constant bombardment and diversion of news and social media. Within them are traces of global fracturing and collapse, through which plants continue to reach toward the air.

Deirdre Frost is a Cork-based visual artist, working from Backwater Artist Studios, and is represented by Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin.

Her solo exhibitions include Tumbling Earth (2025) at Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin; Big Crush (2023) at Kilkenny Arts Festival; In Habitat, In Transition (2021) at Studio 12, Backwater Artists Group, and St Luke’s Crypt, Sample Studios; Claochló (2021) at Joan Clancy Gallery, Waterford; and Biophilia (2021), part of the Lavit Gallery Student of the Year Exhibition, Cork.

Unfolding

MFA/MA in Fine Art Exhibition at the Large Sculpture Studio GF20, Limerick School of Art and Design

Limerick, Ireland – [21st of July 2025] – Unfolding is an exhibition featuring seven artists from the MFA/MA in Fine Art programme at Limerick School of Art and Design—TUS. It will take place at the Large Sculpture Studio, Clare St. Campus, from September 2nd to September 10th, 2025. The artists’ reception event will be held on September 9th at 5:30 PM.

In Unfolding, the act of slowly revealing is a sustained movement; an ongoing unfolding of form, thought, and relation that favours becoming over closure.

Through diverse media, the artists engage with themes that are intimate, political, embodied, and affective. Across the exhibition, material becomes a means of thinking: with memory, space, the body, and with the systems both visible and invisible, that shape lived experience. Unfolding becomes an epistemological gesture; an opening into ways of knowing that remain fluid, provisional, and situated.

Artists:

Marta Baptista – Sorcha Hassett – Marta Jagusiak – Brendan Roddy – Brian Twomey – Oliwia Alicja Woszczynska – Barry Wrafter

Opening reception Friday 18 July, 5.30-7.30pm

Exhibition tour with Gallery Director, Brian Mac Domhnaill Saturday 09 August, 12pm

Running over six weeks, the Summer Exhibition at Lavit Gallery is an annual group show featuring painting, print, photography, sculpture and craft at a variety of price points. This year exhibiting artists and makers include Wendy Dison, Michael Duhan, Patricia Doherty, Grainne Dowling, Ana Duncan, James English, Angela Fewer, Felicia Garrivan, Etain Hickey, Antonio Julio Lopez Castro, Andrew Ludick, Damaris Lysaght, David Magee, Michaela McCann, Isobel McCarthy, Kate Mac Donagh, Peter McTigue, Paul Murphy, Claire O’Reilly, John O’Reilly, Jenny Richardson, Katherina Tremil, Zoe Velthuysen, Sarah Walker, Catherine Weld.

Cork Arts Society (est 1963), trading as Lavit Gallery, is a not-for-profit arts organisation, registered charity (CHY 13297) and CLG dedicated to promoting an appreciation of art in Cork City through the provision of a gallery space in which artists can exhibit their artwork for public patronage. Lavit Gallery also serves the art community and the public through its non-commercial activities such as artist talks, exhibition tours, continued professional development and the provision of two graduate awards given annually to students at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design.

We are delighted to invite you to the opening of Tadgh McSweeney’s exhibition, Saoirse, on 2 August at 12 noon.
The exhibition will be introduced by Tadgh’s friend and film-maker, Vivienne Dick.

McSweeney was an exceptionally individual artist who found extraordinary beauty in the absolutely ordinary, in the landscapes, animals and everyday objects of his home surroundings.

The poet Brian Lynch wrote, ‘the simplicity, the stubbornness, the freshness, and the joy he finds in nature are facets of an ongoing self-portrait, expressions of the soul of an original artistic personality. He is in the tradition of Irish genius, but there is no genius like him. Tadgh McSweeney is unique’.

McSweeney studied in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, between 1959 and 1960, and later studied printmaking techniques, such as etching and silkscreen printing, in London. He exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Oireachtas, Group 65 and the Independent Artists annual exhibitions, and had fourteen solo shows in Cork, Dublin, San Francisco, Hamburg, Killarney and London. He passed away on 29 August 2018, aged 82.

The exhibition runs until 31 August, open Wed—Sun, 12—5pm or by appointment.

Exhibition continues 24th July 2025 to 31st of August.

Sample-Studios is delighted to host our Annual Members Summer Exhibition 2025 in Sample-Studios Gallery, The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion in Fitzgerald’s Park. 40 of our 160+ members will be represented in a wonderfully rich and diverse exhibition, showcasing the richness and diversity of work being produced by our community of contemporary artists. This exhibition is a unique opportunity for audiences to engage with new work across a range of media by a significant number of emerging and established contemporary artists working in and around Cork.

This exhibition features painting, print, drawing, and photography by 40 Sample-Studios members: Hina Khan, Viktoria Kondratieva, Etaoin Melville, Struàn Bell, Annie Forrester, Anthony Murphy, Tetiana Milshyna, Amal Hope, Chris Finnegan, Niamh Hughes, Kim-Ling Morris, Laurie Legrand, Siobhán Gillies, Jacqueline O’Driscoll, Barbara Diener, Rebecca Bradley, Joseph Heffernan, Ben Reilly, Thea Mercer, Éadaoin Glynn, Aisling MacCallion, Grace Haynes, Fiona Boniwell, Sarah Buckley, Amna Walayat, Síomha Callanan, Oonagh Hurley, Leah Murphy, Angela Gilmour, Bernadette Doolin, Michaela McCann, Ann Lambe, Siobhán Collins, Sinéad Barrett, Emma Jacobs, Aisling Roche, Leslie Allen Spillane, Dee Hurley, Mary Cooke, Catherine Callanan.

Gerard Sexton, Creative Director of The Market Gallery, Douglas, will offer opening remarks at the Opening Reception on 24 July from 7:30-9pm. Light refreshments will be served and all are welcome to attend.

This year, we are particularly excited to bring our Annual Members Summer Exhibition on tour! After it concludes in Sample-Studios Gallery, The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, the works will travel to The Market Gallery in Douglas, where the exhibition will be on display from 5 September – 4 October.

ERLEND EVENSEN

CELESTE SHIMOURA GOEDERT

ELIZA GUION

GENEVIEVE MOBERLY

MELISSA STIEFEL

August 15-September 5, 2025

Opening Reception | August 15 | 6:00-8:00pm

Opening Remarks by Taim Haimet

Future Artifacts presents the artistic research of five 2025 MA Candidates at the Burren College of Art. Bringing together painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and experimental material processes, our work is rooted in a refusal to lose the imagination battle with facism. In a time of genocide and ecocide, we draw upon history, myth, folklore, and alchemy in our attempts to metabolize collective grief and insist on speculative futures of survival and interdependence

A Walk & Talk Tour with the Artist, facilitated by Gillian Lattimore of Irish Seed Savers will take place on Sat 12 Jul at 10am. All welcome.

Heirloom is an installation of works created by artist Rachel Doolin. The project stems from a culmination of experiential research undertaken during an Arctic-based residency programme, later informed by a creative partnership with the Irish Seed Savers Association.

In 2017, Doolin embarked on a research residency in Longyearbyen, an industrial frontier town situated in Svalbard, a remote Arctic archipelago located midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. Here, buried deep beneath a permafrost mountain, lies a backup of the world’s largest collection of agricultural biodiversity, cryogenically preserved within the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations estimates that 75% of the genetic diversity in agricultural crops has been lost since the 20th century. As risks from the climate crisis and global conflict escalate, seed banks are increasingly considered a precious resource that could one day prevent a worldwide food crisis.

Heirloom presents a series of visual, installation, and digital works that celebrate the ‘profundity of seeds’ by exploring the human thread that articulates the connection between our past, present, and future. It places the humble seed as a profound nexus in the nature-culture relationship.

This exhibition will be accompanied by a number of workshops and activities. Please see website for details.

Samir Mahmood is a Pakistani artist based in Dublin. In his country of origin, Mahmood trained as a medical doctor, and he immigrated to Ireland in 2008 to undertake further studies in the field. But he abandoned this career to pursue art, and has been working as an artist in Ireland since the mid-2010s. The exhibition Symplegmatic Portals features numerous newly created works alongside an extensive selection of works made between 2017 and 2024. It is the largest presentation of the artist’s work to date.

Symplegmatic Portals is produced by SIRIUS and curated by Miguel Amado, Director.

LAUNCH EVENT

SIRIUS
Saturday, 12 July
2-4pm
Free; no booking required

Samir Mahmood in conversation with Seán Kissane, moderated by Miguel Amado

Samir Mahmood and Seán Kissane, Curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, discuss the exhibition’s vision, key works on display, the politics and aesthetics informing Mahmood’s practice and his wider artistic intentions.

Accessibility Note
Our building has accessibility limitations. There are three steps to the front door and a temporary wheelchair ramp is available upon request. Elements of this exhibition are accessed via stairs. Our toilets are also accessed via stairs and are not open to visitors. Public toilets are beside the Titanic Experience, on The Promenade.

Samir Mahmood’s practice encompasses painting, textiles, objects and video, with a particular focus on themes of identity, representation, bodily awareness and spiritual transformation. Specifically, he makes large-scale scrolls and small-format paintings. Both draw from the techniques and materials of miniature painting on the Indian subcontinent – for example rich detail, intricate storytelling and the use of wasli, a specific type of handmade paper, as a substrate. The typical imagery features landscapes or scenes of people that indicate power relations and structures, wildlife or mythology. Mahmood subverts all of this through motifs that explore his lived experience as a queer person with an Islamic upbringing.

Mahmood is influenced by multiple intellectual and visual references: Sufism (a chapter of Islam) and Christianity; the writings of the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafez; architecture, ritual objects and practices, ceremonies, mysticism, folklore and iconographies from the Indian subcontinent and/or Islam; alternative theories of consciousness; and narratives of queer existence.

Mahmood depicts the male form in states of introspection or conviviality. Figures appear within or surrounded by nature – trees, vegetation, water, mountains and more – in varying expressions of intimacy. In addition, he shows figures in dialogue with sites of politics, including courthouses and administrative chambers, which suggest conservative customs and values. In the work, these bodies undergo a transcendence that speaks to a personal transformative potential, representing a union with the divine or, more broadly, a spiritual awakening, as well as a subversion of normative lifestyles.

A key feature of the exhibition is the series of large-scale scrolls portraying joyous celebrations of sexual freedom, and the garden as a symbol of paradise and utopia across religions. The artist calls these works ‘queerscapes’ – spaces of liberation where bodies are interacting, mutating, coalescing.

The title of the exhibition invokes yet more of Mahmood’s key interests. ‘Symplegma’ can mean renderings of sexual intercourse, composite drawings in miniature painting from the Indian subcontinent or anything that is entwined or entangled. Overall, these interpretations speak to the artist’s embrace of hybridity, especially gender indeterminacy and fluidity, as well as his own blended cultural experiences.

Samir Mahmood lives and works in Dublin, where he operates from Fire Station Artist’s Studios. He has held a solo show at Mart Gallery, Dublin, and has participated in group shows in venues such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin; and The Glucksman, Cork. He holds a BA in Art from the Atlantic Technological University, Galway. His work is in the collection of University College Cork. He received awards from the Arts Council, including the Next Generation, Bursary and Agility.

The Courthouse Gallery Studios in Ennistymon is delighted to announce the opening of its Summer Open Exhibition, launching on Tuesday, July 4th, and running throughout the summer season.

Curated by acclaimed artist and curator Gabhann Dunne, the exhibition showcases an exciting and diverse collection of work from selected artists across Ireland. Visitors can expect a rich display of creativity, including paintings, sculpture, and mixed-media works, offering something for art lovers of all tastes.

The Summer Open celebrates both emerging and established artists, providing a platform for vibrant artistic voices and fresh perspectives. All exhibited artworks will also be available for purchase, making this an excellent opportunity for collectors and visitors to take home a piece of contemporary Irish art.

The Courthouse Gallery Studios invites the public to join them for the opening and enjoy an inspiring evening of art, community, and conversation.

Location:
The Courthouse Gallery & Studios
Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland

Opening Reception:
Friday, July 4th, 2025

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with Cultúrlann Sweeney Library Gallery is delighted to present ‘Painting through the lens” an art exhibition by Pauline Dunleavy.

Pauline Dunleavy is a prominent Irish artist, art-teacher, and community advocate rooted in the dramatic landscapes of West Clare. Born and based in the Kilrush area, she draws endless inspiration from the shifting moods of the River Shannon and the Atlantic coast.

Mediums: Primarily works in oils, but also acrylics, charcoal, and encaustic (pigmented beeswax). Over 25 years of painting, her style has matured into vibrant pieces rich in texture and transparency, often incorporating abstract elements layered with pastel, charcoal, and acrylic before final oil or wax finishes.

She loves nothing more than getting out into the landscape to sketch. Her creative approach begins with music, layered gesso, and quick studies. Uses photo references and mirrors to evaluate composition, spraying, erasing, and layering until the piece feels complete. She finds beauty in the ordinary local scenes such as boglands, seascapes, coastlines and this comes through in her work.

Pauline often photographs landscapes before painting. Referencing photos during her process helps capture the authenticity of light, mood, and composition. She waits days before signing the work to ensure total satisfaction of the piece.

Exhibitions & Community Involvement
2022: First solo exhibition “On Our Doorstep” at Cultúrlann Sweeney Gallery, Kilkee, Officially opened by Artist Ruth Wood.
2024: Exhibition “Inspired Landscapes and Beyond” at Clare Museum, officially opened by wildlife expert Éanna Ní Lamhna.
June 2025: Exhibition “Breaking Borders” in Kinvara.
July 2025: Part of the Summer Exhibition at the Kenny Gallery, Galway. Her other pieces are on display all year round.
July 2025: Kilrush Art Group exhibition at Kilrush Library.
Works can be viewed also at The Kilbaha Gallery throughout the year.
Runs her own Gallery & Craft Shop (Anchor Crafts, Kilrush).
Community Engagement:
Former lifeboat crew and Station Manager with the Kilrush Rnli for over 25 years, it has given her a deep connection to the sea which she portrays on almost every canvas. Pauline is very well regarded in West Clare.

Featured Image: Poster for upcoming exhibition

Unfolding

MFA/MA in Fine Art Exhibition at the Large Sculpture Studio GF20, Limerick School of Art and Design

Limerick, Ireland – [21st of July 2025] – Unfolding is an exhibition featuring seven artists from the MFA/MA in Fine Art programme at Limerick School of Art and Design—TUS. It will take place at the Large Sculpture Studio, Clare St. Campus, from September 2nd to September 10th, 2025. The artists’ reception event will be held on September 9th at 5:30 PM.

In Unfolding, the act of slowly revealing is a sustained movement; an ongoing unfolding of form, thought, and relation that favours becoming over closure.

Through diverse media, the artists engage with themes that are intimate, political, embodied, and affective. Across the exhibition, material becomes a means of thinking: with memory, space, the body, and with the systems both visible and invisible, that shape lived experience. Unfolding becomes an epistemological gesture; an opening into ways of knowing that remain fluid, provisional, and situated.

Artists:

Marta Baptista – Sorcha Hassett – Marta Jagusiak – Brendan Roddy – Brian Twomey – Oliwia Alicja Woszczynska – Barry Wrafter

In 2025 Lismore Castle Arts will celebrate 20 years by presenting an exhibition dedicated to the theme of Kunstkammer, curated by art historian & writer, Robert O’Byrne.

Kunstkammer is a form of museum in which strange or rare objects are exhibited together, also known as a Cabinet of Curiosities. Once widespread throughout Europe, these private museums were renowned for featuring a broad range of objects, including Arteficialia (products of man) and Naturalia (products of nature) together with scientific instruments, clocks and automaton.

Priceless works of art were shown alongside strange curiosities, antiquities next to the latest inventions. They were united in their diversity, and their beauty. Kunstkammer at Lismore Castle is both a re-creation and a reinvention of the genre. Through a series of rooms, each one different in size and form, historical objects from private and public collections will share space with works by leading Irish and international contemporary artists.

The exhibition creates new encounters with the familiar and uncanny, inviting timely conversations about display, collections, and contemporary practice as the artefact of the future. Drawing on themes of display the work invites audiences to engage with contemporary art in an accessible way, referring to one of the original ambitions of the Cabinet of Curiosity to foster learning through encounter.

Robert O’Byrne is one of Ireland’s best known writers and lecturers specializing in the fine and decorative arts. A former Vice-President of the Irish Georgian Society, he is the author of more than a dozen books, a former columnist for Apollo magazine, and a contributor to both The Burlington Magazine and the Irish Arts Review. Robert has curated many exhibitions, including Ireland’s Fashion Radicals for The Little Museum in Dublin, and In Harmony with Nature: The Irish Country House Garden for the Irish Georgian Society, both of which drew record attendances. For the past twelve years, he has written an award-winning blog The Irish Aesthete.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive programme of events, talks, screenings, and a far-reaching learning programme. A catalogue will be published in Summer 2025 to accompany the exhibition.

A Walk & Talk Tour with the Artist, facilitated by Gillian Lattimore of Irish Seed Savers will take place on Sat 12 Jul at 10am. All welcome.

Heirloom is an installation of works created by artist Rachel Doolin. The project stems from a culmination of experiential research undertaken during an Arctic-based residency programme, later informed by a creative partnership with the Irish Seed Savers Association.

In 2017, Doolin embarked on a research residency in Longyearbyen, an industrial frontier town situated in Svalbard, a remote Arctic archipelago located midway between continental Norway and the North Pole. Here, buried deep beneath a permafrost mountain, lies a backup of the world’s largest collection of agricultural biodiversity, cryogenically preserved within the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations estimates that 75% of the genetic diversity in agricultural crops has been lost since the 20th century. As risks from the climate crisis and global conflict escalate, seed banks are increasingly considered a precious resource that could one day prevent a worldwide food crisis.

Heirloom presents a series of visual, installation, and digital works that celebrate the ‘profundity of seeds’ by exploring the human thread that articulates the connection between our past, present, and future. It places the humble seed as a profound nexus in the nature-culture relationship.

This exhibition will be accompanied by a number of workshops and activities. Please see website for details.

‘Art in Motion’ Exhibition to Open at Baile Mhuire Day Centre.

Tralee Art Group is delighted to announce their latest collaborative exhibition, ‘Art in Motion’, which will be officially opened on Tuesday, June 17th at 2.30pm at Baile Mhuire Day Centre, Balloonagh, Tralee. The opening will be led by special guest Paddy Garvey, Chairperson of Baile Mhuire, and all are welcome to attend. Guests can enjoy an afternoon of art, music and refreshments in a warm and inclusive setting.

This special exhibition is the result of a unique collaboration between members of Tralee Art Group and the clients of Baile Mhuire Day Centre, showcasing the creative energy and expression of both groups. Featuring a variety of works in different media, styles and subjects, Art in Motion celebrates movement, creativity, and community spirit.

TAG is committed to enriching the cultural life of Tralee and surrounding areas. The group regularly holds exhibitions, workshops, and community projects, and has built strong relationships with local organisations—including an ongoing volunteering partnership with Baile Mhuire.

This exhibition reflects that partnership, with art created not only by TAG members but also by clients of the Day Centre who engage weekly in creative workshops facilitated by the group volunteers from Tralee Art Group. The result is a joyful and inspiring collection of artworks, each piece telling its own story of imagination, connection, and collaboration.

All are welcome to attend the opening and celebrate this uplifting display of artistic expression in our community. The exhibition will run for a year and be available to the public weekdays between 4pm and 5pm.

The Courthouse Gallery Studios in Ennistymon is delighted to announce the opening of its Summer Open Exhibition, launching on Tuesday, July 4th, and running throughout the summer season.

Curated by acclaimed artist and curator Gabhann Dunne, the exhibition showcases an exciting and diverse collection of work from selected artists across Ireland. Visitors can expect a rich display of creativity, including paintings, sculpture, and mixed-media works, offering something for art lovers of all tastes.

The Summer Open celebrates both emerging and established artists, providing a platform for vibrant artistic voices and fresh perspectives. All exhibited artworks will also be available for purchase, making this an excellent opportunity for collectors and visitors to take home a piece of contemporary Irish art.

The Courthouse Gallery Studios invites the public to join them for the opening and enjoy an inspiring evening of art, community, and conversation.

Location:
The Courthouse Gallery & Studios
Ennistymon, Co. Clare, Ireland

Opening Reception:
Friday, July 4th, 2025

An exhibition from Crawford Art Gallery Collection selected by Salt & Pepper LGBTQI+ Art Collective with Toma McCullim

Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre – alongside the Salt & Pepper group (West Cork’s elder LGBTQI+ arts collective) – has partnered with artist Toma McCullim to curate an invigorating exhibition for summer 2025. Titled Grá, this exhibition celebrates love in all its forms and draws from the collection of Crawford Art Gallery. Accompanying this curated selection are responses to individual artworks in the exhibition made by artists from the Salt & Pepper Collective.

While this National Cultural Institution is closed for its major redevelopment – Transforming Crawford Art Gallery – the opportunity arose to share parts of its collection with other organisations across the island of Ireland to create meaningful encounters for the public. With the guidance of Dr. Michael Waldron Curator of Collections and Special Projects at Crawford Art Gallery, Salt & Pepper has explored the collection to shape a diverse, inclusive showcase for Uillinn, accompanied by a rich programme of talks, tours, workshops, and events.

Grá features key works from the 20th and 21st centuries, including the iconic Portrait of Fiona Shaw (2002) by Victoria Russell, The Red Rose (1923) by John Lavery, and Patrick Hennessy’s Self Portrait and Cat (1978), as well as Paul La Rocque’s In Her Own Garden (1998) and the photographic series Hi, Vis (2020-21) by Dragana Jurišić. The exhibition also includes works by, among others, Sara Baume, Margaret Clarke, Tom Climent, Gerard Dillon, Stephen Doyle, Mainie Jellett, Harry Kernoff, Janet Mullarney, Isabel Nolan, John Rainey, Patrick Scott, Edith Somerville, Niamh Swanton, and Mary Swanzy.

A highlight of the exhibition is the formation of the Grá Choir led by singer-songwriter Liz Clark in collaboration with Salt & Pepper. The choir will perform Beloved, a choral piece and a moving tribute to enduring love, composed by Carol Nelson for her wife Deborah, at the opening of the Grá exhibition. A further performance will take place in St. Barrahane’s Church, Castletownshend later in the summer.

Developed through a series of workshops by West Cork Rainbow Families in collaboration with Toma McCullim, the Grá Discovery Box will be available throughout the exhibition. It invites families to explore the exhibition together, encouraging interaction with the artwork and offering insights into the artists’ creative processes. It’s free to use, and no booking is required.

Developed and facilitated by artist Toma McCullim and health professional Sarah Cairns, In the Picture, le Grá is a dementia-friendly gallery programme thoughtfully designed for small groups. Participants are given time to explore the space and artwork at their own pace, with light refreshments included to support a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere.

Film screenings include a short film programme curated by Kai Fiáin reflecting the exhibition’s themes of intimacy, resistance and renewal on Saturday 23 August at 7.00pm; Aideen Barry’s Not to be Known (single channel film, 5.5 mins, Crawford Collection) on Friday 1 August from 10.00am to 4.30pm and Clare Langan’s The Heart of a Tree (HD digital film, 12 mins, Crawford Collection) on Saturday 23 August, 10.00am to 3.30pm.

Grá Gallery Talk and Tours with Dr. Michael Waldron will take place on Thursday 24 July at 1.00pm and Thursday 18 September at 1.00pm, free event, no booking necessary.

For further information on these and other events please see our web and social media channels.

Image: Paul La Rocque, In Her Own Garden. Collection Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. © the artist

This summer marks a transformative moment for Kilmacthomas as the historic Old Woollen Mill reopens its doors, with the first floor of the mill reimagined as the 8 Arch Gallery—a new cultural space in the heart of the town. To celebrate this reopening, the gallery proudly presents its inaugural exhibition, featuring work by seven of Ireland’s most significant living artists.
Charles Tyrell
Bernadette Kiely
Gerda Teljeur
Paul Mosse
Eilis O’Connell
Eamon Colman
Pat Harris
This landmark show brings together an exciting collection of drawings, paintings and sculptures. Each artist has been carefully selected for their contribution to the visual arts, and the unique voice they bring to Ireland’s evolving cultural narrative.

Samir Mahmood is a Pakistani artist based in Dublin. In his country of origin, Mahmood trained as a medical doctor, and he immigrated to Ireland in 2008 to undertake further studies in the field. But he abandoned this career to pursue art, and has been working as an artist in Ireland since the mid-2010s. The exhibition Symplegmatic Portals features numerous newly created works alongside an extensive selection of works made between 2017 and 2024. It is the largest presentation of the artist’s work to date.

Symplegmatic Portals is produced by SIRIUS and curated by Miguel Amado, Director.

LAUNCH EVENT

SIRIUS
Saturday, 12 July
2-4pm
Free; no booking required

Samir Mahmood in conversation with Seán Kissane, moderated by Miguel Amado

Samir Mahmood and Seán Kissane, Curator at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, discuss the exhibition’s vision, key works on display, the politics and aesthetics informing Mahmood’s practice and his wider artistic intentions.

Accessibility Note
Our building has accessibility limitations. There are three steps to the front door and a temporary wheelchair ramp is available upon request. Elements of this exhibition are accessed via stairs. Our toilets are also accessed via stairs and are not open to visitors. Public toilets are beside the Titanic Experience, on The Promenade.

Samir Mahmood’s practice encompasses painting, textiles, objects and video, with a particular focus on themes of identity, representation, bodily awareness and spiritual transformation. Specifically, he makes large-scale scrolls and small-format paintings. Both draw from the techniques and materials of miniature painting on the Indian subcontinent – for example rich detail, intricate storytelling and the use of wasli, a specific type of handmade paper, as a substrate. The typical imagery features landscapes or scenes of people that indicate power relations and structures, wildlife or mythology. Mahmood subverts all of this through motifs that explore his lived experience as a queer person with an Islamic upbringing.

Mahmood is influenced by multiple intellectual and visual references: Sufism (a chapter of Islam) and Christianity; the writings of the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafez; architecture, ritual objects and practices, ceremonies, mysticism, folklore and iconographies from the Indian subcontinent and/or Islam; alternative theories of consciousness; and narratives of queer existence.

Mahmood depicts the male form in states of introspection or conviviality. Figures appear within or surrounded by nature – trees, vegetation, water, mountains and more – in varying expressions of intimacy. In addition, he shows figures in dialogue with sites of politics, including courthouses and administrative chambers, which suggest conservative customs and values. In the work, these bodies undergo a transcendence that speaks to a personal transformative potential, representing a union with the divine or, more broadly, a spiritual awakening, as well as a subversion of normative lifestyles.

A key feature of the exhibition is the series of large-scale scrolls portraying joyous celebrations of sexual freedom, and the garden as a symbol of paradise and utopia across religions. The artist calls these works ‘queerscapes’ – spaces of liberation where bodies are interacting, mutating, coalescing.

The title of the exhibition invokes yet more of Mahmood’s key interests. ‘Symplegma’ can mean renderings of sexual intercourse, composite drawings in miniature painting from the Indian subcontinent or anything that is entwined or entangled. Overall, these interpretations speak to the artist’s embrace of hybridity, especially gender indeterminacy and fluidity, as well as his own blended cultural experiences.

Samir Mahmood lives and works in Dublin, where he operates from Fire Station Artist’s Studios. He has held a solo show at Mart Gallery, Dublin, and has participated in group shows in venues such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin; and The Glucksman, Cork. He holds a BA in Art from the Atlantic Technological University, Galway. His work is in the collection of University College Cork. He received awards from the Arts Council, including the Next Generation, Bursary and Agility.

In December 2017, artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen (b. 1969, London, UK) made an artwork in response to the fire that took place earlier that year on 14 June at Grenfell Tower, North Kensington, West London. 72 people died in the tragedy. Filming the tower before it was covered with hoarding, McQueen sought to make a record.

Following the fire, a Government Inquiry ran from September 2017 until September 2024. The resulting recommendations are yet to be implemented, meaning a similar tragedy could happen again. There is an ongoing criminal investigation, with potential charges including corporate manslaughter. No trials are expected until 2027 at the earliest, over a decade since the fire.

Grenfell was first presented in 2023 at Serpentine in London’s Kensington Gardens, following a period of private viewings, prioritising bereaved families and survivors. Following its presentation at Serpentine the work was placed in the care of Tate and the London Museum’s collections.

Please note screenings of Grenfell will take place at set times. Doors open fifteen minutes before the screening time and the screening will commence promptly. This work is intended to be seen from the start, so unfortunately latecomers cannot be admitted. The film is 24 minutes long.

The film contains close-up imagery of the tower six months after the fire. Please let a member of our team know if you need space to pause, rest and reflect afterwards.

Filming or photography is not permitted in the gallery space. Please ensure your phone is on silent.

This national tour is being coordinated by Tate in collaboration with the partner venues and is made possible thanks to public funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England and from Art Fund.

Opening reception Friday 18 July, 5.30-7.30pm

Exhibition tour with Gallery Director, Brian Mac Domhnaill Saturday 09 August, 12pm

Running over six weeks, the Summer Exhibition at Lavit Gallery is an annual group show featuring painting, print, photography, sculpture and craft at a variety of price points. This year exhibiting artists and makers include Wendy Dison, Michael Duhan, Patricia Doherty, Grainne Dowling, Ana Duncan, James English, Angela Fewer, Felicia Garrivan, Etain Hickey, Antonio Julio Lopez Castro, Andrew Ludick, Damaris Lysaght, David Magee, Michaela McCann, Isobel McCarthy, Kate Mac Donagh, Peter McTigue, Paul Murphy, Claire O’Reilly, John O’Reilly, Jenny Richardson, Katherina Tremil, Zoe Velthuysen, Sarah Walker, Catherine Weld.

Cork Arts Society (est 1963), trading as Lavit Gallery, is a not-for-profit arts organisation, registered charity (CHY 13297) and CLG dedicated to promoting an appreciation of art in Cork City through the provision of a gallery space in which artists can exhibit their artwork for public patronage. Lavit Gallery also serves the art community and the public through its non-commercial activities such as artist talks, exhibition tours, continued professional development and the provision of two graduate awards given annually to students at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design.

The Great Book of Ireland is an extraordinary vellum manuscript which contains the original work of 120 artists, 140 poets and nine composers.

All of the contributors were asked one thing – please convey your hopes, joys, fears, loves in being an Irish person at the turn of the second millennium. Described by former president, Mary Robinson, as “the Book of Kells of the second millennium”, artists and writers who contributed include Samuel Beckett, Eavan Boland, Cecily Brennan, Louis le Brocquy, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Barrie Cooke, Dorothy Cross, Daniel Day-Lewis, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Seamus Heaney, Eithne Jordan, Michael Longley, John Montague, Tony O’Malley, Kathy Prendergast, and Patrick Scott.

Visitors will have the opportunity to view the original manuscript as well as to use a digital touchscreen to turn the pages and explore the exceptional range of artistic practices brought together in this unique cultural artefact.

Visitors will have the opportunity to view the original manuscript as well as to use a digital touchscreen to turn the pages and explore the exceptional range of artistic practices brought together in this unique cultural artefact.

The Great Book of Ireland is supported by The Arts Council Ireland, University College Cork, and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation.

Sara Flynn, Sueharu Fukami, Shihoko Fukumoto, Joe Hogan, Eiko Kishi, Frances Lambe, Deirdre McLoughlin, O’Donnell + Tuomey, Satoru Ozaki, Sean Scully, Joseph Walsh, Kan Yasuda, Osamu Yokoyama.

Curated by Wahei Aoyama and Joseph Walsh.

RINN explores the culture of making and its relationship to place and time through the work of Irish and Japanese artists and architects. While each piece is a personal expression of form, their works are united by an immersion in the culture of making. Whether drawing on craft heritage – the materials and skills associated with place – or challenging new techniques and pursing new materials, they all share an intimate relationship with the handmade.

Rinn in Gaelic means place or a point – and in Japanese, the same word means circle, ring or circularity. Joseph Walsh has observed that the meaning in both languages strongly represents ideas inherent in his practice, of place and this moment in time, within a continuous cycle of time.

Presented by Making In by Joseph Walsh Studio as part of the Ireland Japan 2025 programme in partnership with the Government of Ireland, the exhibition premiered in April at both Ireland House and A Lighthouse called Kanata, Tokyo.

The Glucksman is proud to host the show on its return to Ireland.

RINN is supported by The Arts Council Ireland, University College Cork, Government of Ireland, Ireland Japan 2025, A Lighthouse Called Kanata, and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation.

Maitiú Mac Cárthaigh is a visual artist, researcher and MTU Crawford Graduate. Their current research grows from their connection to rural queer existence in Ireland. This project examines (de)colonial queer loneliness / identity performativity in contemporary culture and how it is informed by our history. Over the last forty years, we have seen a rapid shift in queer positionality in Ireland arriving at a point of queerness being synonymous with words like “new” and “radical”. With this project, Maitiú looks back at Irish history and questions how colonial occupation and persistent Roman Catholic hegemony has purged, burned and shipped off so many queer stories and histories. How can you fully know your identity when you are denied its lineage and how is heteronormative culture able to utilise this against us? This research fits into the wider context of their practice which looks at mechanisms of group assimilation, self-annihilation, and ascension within isolated queer, white and Irish communities. Maitiú’s work is formalised through bio-installation, print, sound and video.

Since completing their MA in Artistic Research in 2023, they have been awarded a residency in Casino Display (LUX), been shortlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Awards 2023 and selected to exhibit as part of “Person, Presence, Perception”, an all island of Ireland travelling exhibition with the OPW and NI Department of Finance. Recently, they presented their work as a part of Radio Solstice in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024 and have been awarded the Agility Award 2024.

This residency and subsequent solo exhibition will build upon the artist’s current focus on rural queerness and agricultural processes in Ireland. During this residency, they will focus on the history and effects of loneliness on rural queer experience and how it is connected to ideas of sterility, community monoculturalism, homogeneity, White guilt and queer assimilation into dominant heteronormative culture. This work is an extension of Maitiú’s research into Irish agri-policy and how it is informed by the histories of colonisation, globalisation and western superiority.

This project aims to reclaim queer Irish presence and identity performativity through the voice and tradition of na coainte (nomative plural of coaineadh). Growing from their existing material practice, there are three elements to this research. The first is an ongoing research publication commissioned by Bad Penny Publishing (Den Haag, NL). As material research for this, Maitiú is continuing exploration of bioplastics made with lubricant and working with Dr. Declan Tuite to create a queer motet or polyvocal monastic choral piece.

The residency will coincide with the Cork Pride Festival.

Triskel Sample Project Space is a new partnership between Triskel and Sample-Studios that will provide a visual arts project space for artists, especially emerging and mid-career artists, to test ideas and to develop new work that can be seen by the public. This offers tangible career development and audience engagement opportunities to artists on their ‘home turf’ where they have a safe space to develop new ideas, within which risk-taking is possible.

We are delighted to invite you to the opening of Tadgh McSweeney’s exhibition, Saoirse, on 2 August at 12 noon.
The exhibition will be introduced by Tadgh’s friend and film-maker, Vivienne Dick.

McSweeney was an exceptionally individual artist who found extraordinary beauty in the absolutely ordinary, in the landscapes, animals and everyday objects of his home surroundings.

The poet Brian Lynch wrote, ‘the simplicity, the stubbornness, the freshness, and the joy he finds in nature are facets of an ongoing self-portrait, expressions of the soul of an original artistic personality. He is in the tradition of Irish genius, but there is no genius like him. Tadgh McSweeney is unique’.

McSweeney studied in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, between 1959 and 1960, and later studied printmaking techniques, such as etching and silkscreen printing, in London. He exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Oireachtas, Group 65 and the Independent Artists annual exhibitions, and had fourteen solo shows in Cork, Dublin, San Francisco, Hamburg, Killarney and London. He passed away on 29 August 2018, aged 82.

The exhibition runs until 31 August, open Wed—Sun, 12—5pm or by appointment.

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with Cultúrlann Sweeney Library Gallery is delighted to present ‘Painting through the lens” an art exhibition by Pauline Dunleavy.

Pauline Dunleavy is a prominent Irish artist, art-teacher, and community advocate rooted in the dramatic landscapes of West Clare. Born and based in the Kilrush area, she draws endless inspiration from the shifting moods of the River Shannon and the Atlantic coast.

Mediums: Primarily works in oils, but also acrylics, charcoal, and encaustic (pigmented beeswax). Over 25 years of painting, her style has matured into vibrant pieces rich in texture and transparency, often incorporating abstract elements layered with pastel, charcoal, and acrylic before final oil or wax finishes.

She loves nothing more than getting out into the landscape to sketch. Her creative approach begins with music, layered gesso, and quick studies. Uses photo references and mirrors to evaluate composition, spraying, erasing, and layering until the piece feels complete. She finds beauty in the ordinary local scenes such as boglands, seascapes, coastlines and this comes through in her work.

Pauline often photographs landscapes before painting. Referencing photos during her process helps capture the authenticity of light, mood, and composition. She waits days before signing the work to ensure total satisfaction of the piece.

Exhibitions & Community Involvement
2022: First solo exhibition “On Our Doorstep” at Cultúrlann Sweeney Gallery, Kilkee, Officially opened by Artist Ruth Wood.
2024: Exhibition “Inspired Landscapes and Beyond” at Clare Museum, officially opened by wildlife expert Éanna Ní Lamhna.
June 2025: Exhibition “Breaking Borders” in Kinvara.
July 2025: Part of the Summer Exhibition at the Kenny Gallery, Galway. Her other pieces are on display all year round.
July 2025: Kilrush Art Group exhibition at Kilrush Library.
Works can be viewed also at The Kilbaha Gallery throughout the year.
Runs her own Gallery & Craft Shop (Anchor Crafts, Kilrush).
Community Engagement:
Former lifeboat crew and Station Manager with the Kilrush Rnli for over 25 years, it has given her a deep connection to the sea which she portrays on almost every canvas. Pauline is very well regarded in West Clare.

Featured Image: Poster for upcoming exhibition

ERLEND EVENSEN

CELESTE SHIMOURA GOEDERT

ELIZA GUION

GENEVIEVE MOBERLY

MELISSA STIEFEL

August 15-September 5, 2025

Opening Reception | August 15 | 6:00-8:00pm

Opening Remarks by Taim Haimet

Future Artifacts presents the artistic research of five 2025 MA Candidates at the Burren College of Art. Bringing together painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and experimental material processes, our work is rooted in a refusal to lose the imagination battle with facism. In a time of genocide and ecocide, we draw upon history, myth, folklore, and alchemy in our attempts to metabolize collective grief and insist on speculative futures of survival and interdependence

Exhibition continues 24th July 2025 to 31st of August.

Sample-Studios is delighted to host our Annual Members Summer Exhibition 2025 in Sample-Studios Gallery, The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion in Fitzgerald’s Park. 40 of our 160+ members will be represented in a wonderfully rich and diverse exhibition, showcasing the richness and diversity of work being produced by our community of contemporary artists. This exhibition is a unique opportunity for audiences to engage with new work across a range of media by a significant number of emerging and established contemporary artists working in and around Cork.

This exhibition features painting, print, drawing, and photography by 40 Sample-Studios members: Hina Khan, Viktoria Kondratieva, Etaoin Melville, Struàn Bell, Annie Forrester, Anthony Murphy, Tetiana Milshyna, Amal Hope, Chris Finnegan, Niamh Hughes, Kim-Ling Morris, Laurie Legrand, Siobhán Gillies, Jacqueline O’Driscoll, Barbara Diener, Rebecca Bradley, Joseph Heffernan, Ben Reilly, Thea Mercer, Éadaoin Glynn, Aisling MacCallion, Grace Haynes, Fiona Boniwell, Sarah Buckley, Amna Walayat, Síomha Callanan, Oonagh Hurley, Leah Murphy, Angela Gilmour, Bernadette Doolin, Michaela McCann, Ann Lambe, Siobhán Collins, Sinéad Barrett, Emma Jacobs, Aisling Roche, Leslie Allen Spillane, Dee Hurley, Mary Cooke, Catherine Callanan.

Gerard Sexton, Creative Director of The Market Gallery, Douglas, will offer opening remarks at the Opening Reception on 24 July from 7:30-9pm. Light refreshments will be served and all are welcome to attend.

This year, we are particularly excited to bring our Annual Members Summer Exhibition on tour! After it concludes in Sample-Studios Gallery, The Lord Mayor’s Pavilion, the works will travel to The Market Gallery in Douglas, where the exhibition will be on display from 5 September – 4 October.

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with the Edna O’Brien Library in Scariff is delighted to present “Stereo” by the Artist Sabrina Heinrichs.
Sabrina Heinrichs is a self-taught visual artist born in 1980 in Germany. She lives in Ireland since 2007. She writes and found a passion in photography and interior design.

Through music, nature, the love of diversity of colours and magic, things initially progressed in shy and gentle nuances. 2023, the first piece of art in powerful lively colours was created and a symbiosis between vision and matter, black and white and the entire colour spectrum, a scintillation of magic was born to form a lyrical painting “Stereo“.
Her artworks are modern/abstract expressionism. Sabrina mainly paints with acrylic and watercolours on artpaper or canvas, sometimes she includes nature materials to complete a piece.

Sabrina’s aim is to conjure up confidence, imagination, compassion, to offer a contrast and inspire people to show one’s true colours.
Sabrina has exhibited in galleries in Germany and was part of the Mountshannon arts festival.

Example of work attached: Leaves in the Wind

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with Clare Museum is delighted to present “The return of wonder” by Marijke Jordens and Simon Ratcliffe.

Marijke Jordens is a Belgian artist and singer living in Ennis. She studied life drawing in the Fine Art Academy in Ghent and studied Archaeology at the University.
Marijke’s work reflects a balance between being and doing, between the intuitive and the craft. In The return of wonder Marijke shows her message from within about the dawn of a new way of being, rooted in the celebration of joy and wonder.

Exhibitions:
“Trio: Flow, Texture, Light” with Ronan McMahon and Ingrid Lotter, Sweeney Memorial Library, Kilkee – September 2023;
“Let the light come in”, Steele’s Terrace – December 2022, Scarriff Library – June 2024;
Portrait Exhibition, Mountshannon – December 2024;
Barna Art Fair – December 2024;
“Holding it together” – Solo exhibition, Sweeney Memorial Library, Kilkee – February 2025

Simon Ratcliffe has continued to practice painting and drawing since attending art school in 1993, while working full-time in education. He moved to County Clare 20 years ago, and from that moment, the Burren has been his constant artistic companion, providing a rich source of inspiration. These abstract and figurative pen and ink drawings were created in response to the surrealism of the landscape – the weathered stone itself becomes an allegory of time and spirituality.

Walking the limestone and noticing the music of nature has been the pleasure of his life. Perhaps it is only there where his soul feels free to meditate on the mysteries of lie and to experience the unity of physical and ethereal perception. It is on the ancient seabed of Burren that the past and the present embrace.

Image attached: The return of wonder featuring:
She hears us by Marijke Jordens
The land within by Simon Ratcliffe

Exhibition continues : 23rd August – 13th September 2025.

The BACA Collective was funded by a group Atlantic Technological University graduates who share a commitment to exploration, discovery, and artistic expression.

Originating within the BA in Contemporary Art program, the collective continues to evolve, engaging in a dynamic investigation of contemporary art and its ever-changing dialogues. The artists within the collective have been recognized with a vast range of opportunities and awards, including residencies, funding awards, and participation in notable group and solo exhibitions and have exhibited in several galleries including 126 Art Gallery, ATU Galway Campus, Outset Gallery, Reynolds Gallery, Portershed and more.

Through this collective effort, they present a synthesis of developed and original ideas, reflecting the richness of artistic inquiry and shared expression.

BACA are:

Elisabeth Banim – Annette Colleran – Hannah Daly – Cecilia Daniels – Jessie Gilburd – Bernie Joyce – Charlotte Moran – Jessica Mulas – Aimee O’Brien