Gary Farrelly’s first solo exhibition in Ireland in fifteen years, Quasi-Autonomous Stitch, takes its name from a sewing procedure devised as a method of overwriting and absorbing images and surfaces. The works here are restless, shifting between seams, carbon traces, labels, blueprints, photographs, and logbooks. At stake are languages of construction, obsolescence, staging, and transmission—creased, overwritten, redacted, repaired, forced into proximity.

This exhibition features work from IMMA’s National Collection and invited artists, including Orla Barry, Herman Braun-Vega, Gary Coyle, Ann Hamilton, Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Kathy Prendergast, and Marisa Rappard.

The exhibition takes its inspiration from a poem written by Marianne Moore in 1921 titled “The Grave.” The poem stems from Moore’s personal experience of observing the sea with her mother, where her brother’s intrusion on their view inspired reflections on the human tendency to focus on the immediate rather than the larger picture.

Kerlin Gallery is delighted to announce “Look at the Harlequins!”, a solo exhibition by Isabel Nolan.

Ahead of Isabel Nolan’s forthcoming representation of Ireland at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, this exhibition offers an insight into the artist’s practice characterised by its shifting movement between mediums, where sculpture, textiles and works on paper are held in lively dialogue, celebrating and communing with historical figures and works of art that speak to us across centuries.

Opening: Friday 10 October, 6 – 8pm
Exhibition continues: Saturday 11 – Monday 13 October, 12 – 5pm

The Douglas Hyde is delighted to present ‘Through and Between, a group exhibition organised by the members of the 2025 Student Forum. The Student Forum is a group of students and recent graduates who engage with The Douglas Hyde and its programming.

The exhibition participants are Anastassia Varabiova, Anna O’Leary, Bernadette Kenny, Shanaia Kapoor, Eoghan O’Kelly, Isabella Wood, Jack Pierce, Reuben Brown, Róise McGagh, Jessie Aylmer, James Ó Muirithe, Síofra Egan and Caoimhe Wandel-Brannigan.

In this exhibition guest curator Karla Sánchez invited the eight selected artists to voice their thoughts about the need of current world to re-tell stories that incorporate other beings, human and more-than-human, as well as re-imagine structures and modes of living and doing. New and better futures grounded in nature have to be dreamed of and worked on without delay.

Several common threads emerged; from an interest, deep curiosity and almost obsession with place -natural environments in particular- to personal and social connections and re-connections, experimentation and play.

New artwork from Paddy Bloomer, John Byrne, Bog Cottage, Maria McKinney and Sharon Phelan.

The exhibition opens at 2pm on Sunday 12th October at Brown Mountain Diamond, inviting all to witness the results of five months of creativity, dialogue, and community spirit in the hills of North Kilkenny.

Guided tours at 2:30pm, 4:00pm and 5:30pm
Artworks are outdoors – dress accordingly
Location: Revanagh, Coolcullen, Co. Kilkenny, R93 E089
Live jazz at 4pm
DJ Robbie Kitt 7pm – 9pm

Siren is an expansive exhibition that incorporates ceramic sculpture, textile sculpture, tapestry and mosaic sculpture. Greco-Roman inspired, surrealist mosaic sculpture take centre stage framed by major new monumental tapestry work.

Having lived for over twenty years in post-conflict Belfast, during and after the peace process, Burke has developed a unique exploration between political and aesthetic inquiries into trauma, wounding and repair in her practice.

The gallery is pleased to announce the launch of These Magnetic Magnitudes, a publication by Solstice Arts Centre of works by Cecilia Danell.

This publication, designed by Pure Designs, features a Foreward by Belinda Quirke and commissioned texts by Charity Coleman and Aidan Dunne.

Join us at the gallery on Thursday 9th October from 6-7pm. The publication is an Edition of 400 and will be available on the night, priced at €20.

Published by Solstice Arts Centre (Navan) on the occasion of the exhibition These Magnetic Magnitudes by Cecilia Danell, curated by Brenda McParland.

Internationally renowned photographer Steve Pyke undertook a year-long residency at Photo Museum Ireland, completing his landmark book Scribendi: Portraits of Irish Writers 1985-2025. This stunning book contains over 100 portraits of leading contemporary Irish writers, reflecting the diversity and vitality of Irish literature. Join us for this exclusive pre-launch talk where Steve will be in conversation with writer Timothy O’Grady. The conversation will be followed by the official launch of the book and exhibition.

Please note that booking is required for this event.

Sculpture in Context Celebrates 40 Years at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin

Ireland’s largest and longest-running sculpture exhibition, Sculpture in Context, proudly celebrates its 40th anniversary at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin from Thursday 4th September to Friday 10th October 2025.

Much beloved by the public, Sculpture in Context is a pivotal event in the Irish arts calendar. Over the last four decades the unique presentation of ambitious and contemporary three-dimensional work by leading creative talent, has provided the public with memorable experiences. Sculpture in Context is the largest and longest running sculpture exhibition in Ireland, giving free access to an annual audience of over 100,000.

The exciting range of sculptures to be presented were selected from over 500 entries submitted via open call. The selection of the exhibits was made by a panel of three independent fellow sculptors. Selected artists include Róisín De Buitléar, Ester Barrett, Fiona Smith, Alva Gallagher, Ayelet Lalor, Ray Delaney, Helen Merrigan Colfer, amongst others.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the exhibition also welcomes several distinguished invited artists. Among them are Eilis O’Connell, Alison Kaye, Ken Drew, Ana Duncan, Seamus Gill, Beatrice Stewart, Ciaran Patterson, Penny Lacey, Michelle Maher, and Richard Healy, whose contributions further enrich this 40th anniversary exhibition.

Sculpture in Context will run from Thursday 4th September to Friday 10th October; is free to visit and all are welcome. The National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin will be open 9.00am to 5.00pm on weekdays and 10.00am to 6.00pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Sculpture in Context is a non-profit voluntary organisation and is proceeding this year owing to the goodwill and support of OPW, private sponsorship and personal donations. Sculpture in Context extends heartfelt thanks to the many artists who applied this year and to all those who have contributed to its success over the past 40 years.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Dates: 4th September – 10th October 2025
Venue: National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9
Opening Hours:

Weekdays: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Weekends & Bank Holidays: 10.00am – 6.00pm
Admission: Free – All are welcome

Metamorphosis is a giant plastic temporary art installation situated in the Newman building that provides students, faculty staff, UCD workers and visitors with a performative-educational space for reflection and free expression. Draw. Write. Perform. Participate.

This installation is part of the research project ‘Imagined Sustainabilities’, funded by UCD Sustainability and the Humanities Institute, and led by Eva Bru-Domínguez and Ana Vera.

In ‘The Sibyls’, Alice Maher presents a series of monumental drawings of female figures entangled in, or twisting free from, vast snaking mounds of hair. At the base of these drawings the artist has placed small piles of highly polished, irregular objects—amorphous forms that resemble great globs of mercury.

The title of the series, The Sibyls, references the oracular women of archaic times, seers who lived apart from society and were believed to channel the prophesies of the divine. In Renaissance art these figures were transformed into biblical prophetesses, pictured holding scrolls or books, as in Michelangelo’s majestic turban-clad sibyls in the Sistine chapel. Maher’s Sibyls are different – rather than resting serenely in the architecture of institutional belief or patriarchal systems of meaning, these Sibyls are altogether more dynamic and equivocal. Their scrolls have morphed into chaotic skeins of hair; their turbans twisted into massive living organisms that envelop, extend from, and consume their heads, while their powerful bodies struggle and strain to impart their portentous message…

…Culturally coded as either dangerous or shameful depending on its context, hair becomes here a visual agent of instability. Are the Sibyls coming into being through this dense matrix of bodily material, or are they caught in the web of their own weaving? Are they rising or falling, emerging or succumbing? The signs are deliberately destabilising; their meanings are as slippery and shifting as the mysterious sculptural shapes tumbled below.’

Extract from an Accompanying Text written by Dr Sarah Kelleher.

Scraperboard and Watercolour by Brian Gallagher

Exhibition officially opened by Alan Keane of The Artist’s Well
Thursday 11th September 2025 at 7.30pm

September 11th until October 12th 2025

Viewing Times
11am to 5pm Monday
11am to 9pm Tuesday – Friday
Saturdays 5pm – 10pm

www.bdgart.com

Evolving Landscapes is a critical reflection on the urgent need for climate action in the face of escalating ecological instability. As biodiversity declines and environmental thresholds are crossed, artistic practices increasingly turn to embodied, site-responsive methods that engage directly with damaged ecosystems and communities on the frontlines of change.

This exhibition, curated by Valeria Ceregini, brings together the work of Louis Haugh, Tadhg Kinsella, and Laura Skehan.
Evolving Landscapes is commissioned by Fingal County Council for Culture Night 2025.

New artwork from Paddy Bloomer, John Byrne, Bog Cottage, Maria McKinney and Sharon Phelan.

The exhibition opens at 2pm on Sunday 12th October at Brown Mountain Diamond, inviting all to witness the results of five months of creativity, dialogue, and community spirit in the hills of North Kilkenny.

Guided tours at 2:30pm, 4:00pm and 5:30pm
Artworks are outdoors – dress accordingly
Location: Revanagh, Coolcullen, Co. Kilkenny, R93 E089
Live jazz at 4pm
DJ Robbie Kitt 7pm – 9pm

Opening: Friday 10 October, 6 – 8pm
Exhibition continues: Saturday 11 – Monday 13 October, 12 – 5pm

The Douglas Hyde is delighted to present ‘Through and Between, a group exhibition organised by the members of the 2025 Student Forum. The Student Forum is a group of students and recent graduates who engage with The Douglas Hyde and its programming.

The exhibition participants are Anastassia Varabiova, Anna O’Leary, Bernadette Kenny, Shanaia Kapoor, Eoghan O’Kelly, Isabella Wood, Jack Pierce, Reuben Brown, Róise McGagh, Jessie Aylmer, James Ó Muirithe, Síofra Egan and Caoimhe Wandel-Brannigan.

Collectively, SOD SCRAPER examines the shifting relationship between Ireland’s landscape, its histories, and the hidden architectures of the global data economy. The exhibition explores the intersections of personal narrative, contested land, industrial expansion, and the cultural re-framing of digital infrastructure. Together, the artworks form a layered portrait of a country where global capital reshapes ancient ground, where personal histories collide with corporate expansion, and where the monumental can be both a stone circle and a server farm. SOD SCRAPER asks, who owns the […]

In this quietly powerful series, In Transit, Ginnity captures the choreography of public transport. With empathy and wit, the artist transforms the daily ritual of commuting into a quiet theatre of human behaviour. We see glances avoided, elbows akimbo, phones riveting and bags clutched like protective armour as people navigate the awkwardness of intimate proximity with strangers. We don’t just witness strangers in motion – we recognise ourselves.

Whether you are familiar with the intricacies of public transport or not, In Transit is well worth a visit.

The woman who put a tree on top of a castle is back with a brand-new 18-piece exhibit.

Collection reflects on global and personal challenges, from war and climate change to growing up with dyslexia and losing a parent.
‘From the depths of shadow, light takes shape’

In her new exhibition Out of the Shadows in the Solomon Gallery, Dublin, 25thSeptember – 18th October, Irish sculptor Orla de Brí invites us into a world where the unseen resides. A sculptural 18-piece exploration of the individual and collective shadows we all encounter in life – fear, change, loss, silence – this ninth solo collection of work from de Brí is about resilience and transformation, nurturing strength and finding unexpected light. As de Brí describes it, each piece offers an opportunity to witness vulnerability, wildness and endurance, as from the depths of shadow, light takes shape.

Dublin-born de Brí took her first sculpture course at the young age of 12, an adult night class in North Strand Technical School, her mother persuading the school to let her daughter join the class despite her young age. This was the first step in a career that has led to the creation of 27 large-scale public sculptures across the globe, prestigious showcases in the likes of Sotheby’s, and custom-made pieces for public figures like Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-apartheid activist Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Predominantly working with bronze, steel and fibreglass, Orla has exhibited in cities such as London, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, as well as featuring in numerous prominent public and private collections here in Ireland and abroad – with one of her most striking pieces being ‘Thinking Man’, the incredible 5-metre 24ct gold leafed tree and 3-metre human figure standing tall atop Belvelly Castle in Co. Cork.

Out of the Shadows will run in the Solomon Gallery, Dublin from 25th September -18th October. For the artist, her hope is that people connect with her work on an emotional level and ultimately see something of themselves in it.

Exhibition continues from the 13th of September 2025 to the 18th of October 2025

This September, Graphic Studio Gallery presents One Tree, a new body of Mokuhanga prints and unique works by Ed Miliano. The exhibition is supported by IPUT Real Estate Dublin.

The show centres on a single tree — a recurring subject that appears throughout the works, explored across changing seasons, moods, and materials.

Miliano lived in Japan for four years, where he studied traditional Mokuhanga printmaking with Master printer Takahashi Yo. In One Tree, he revisits this centuries-old technique – making it his own – combining it with collage, painting, and gold leaf. His materials include pages from vintage books and magazines, hand-painted and printed papers, and Japanese Chiyogami papers, all layered to create depth and texture.

In one series, the tree is shown through the four seasons, each on a plain white background. In another, it appears against a luminous gold ground, evoking the gilded surfaces of classical Japanese screen paintings. In some of the works, he draws on Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, using Bosch’s fantastical birds to animate the branches in a surreal fusion of print and paint.

Originally from New York, Miliano studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He now lives and works in Dublin, Ireland, and is a member of Graphic Studio Dublin. His practice spans painting, sculpture, and printmaking, and his work is held in a range of public and private collections including the Department of Foreign Affairs, IPUT, OPW, Arthur Cox, and Joseph Walshe Studios.

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.

Kith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend is a group exhibition featuring the work of African American women from a small Alabama community whose work have become symbols of Black empowerment and cultural pride. This stunning collection of textile works celebrates African American culture and heritage.

28 Feb 2025–27 Oct 2025
Gallery 3

IMMA presents Kith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, the first exhibition of the Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers in Ireland, co-organised with Souls Grown Deep. The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers, a group of African American women from a small Alabama community with a 200-year tradition of quilt making, have created quilts that hold both artistic and political significance. Artistically, their work is renowned for its improvisational style, bold colours, and abstract designs, often compared to modernist art movements like abstract expressionism. Their quilts, made from recycled fabrics, are deeply rooted in African American textile traditions and showcase unique creativity in geometric patterns.

Politically, the quilts reflect resilience and self-sufficiency, as they were born out of necessity in an economically deprived, racially segregated region. The civil rights movement brought attention to these women, who became symbols of Black empowerment and cultural pride. Their craft has been exhibited in museums worldwide, highlighting the importance of marginalised voices in American history. The quilts serve as both a celebration of African American heritage and a testament to the strength and creativity of women in the face of systemic oppression.

Through the public programme IMMA will explore parallels with the textile and quilt-making traditions in Ireland.

IMMA TALKS / Lecture & Launch
The Quilts of Gee’s Bend
Raina Lampkins-Fielder
Join Raina Lampkins-Fielder, chief curator for the Souls Grown Deep Foundation for a talk on the unique quilt making tradition of Gee’s Bend, a community of over five generations of Black American quiltmakers located on the banks of the Alabama River. This talk coincides with the launch of the exhibition Kith & Kin: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend.

Thurs 27 Feb 2025, 5pm – 6pm
Johnston Suite, IMMA
Booking required – Free

Pallas Projects/Studios are delighted to announce the participating artists in our Arts Council funded programme of Artist-Initiated Projects 2025. The series of 8 x 3-week exhibitions between March–November 2025 will present exhibitions of new work by:

Cillian Finnerty, Michella Randilu Perera, Niamh Coffey, Reuben Brown, Lucy Andrews, Kathryn Maguire, Gary Farrelly, Caroline Mac Cathmaoil.

Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of 8 x 3-week exhibitions taking place between March and November 2025. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists’ talks, texts, workshops or performances, and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.

Cillian Finnerty — March 27th – April 12th

Michella Randilu Perera — April 24th – May 10th

Niamh Coffey — May 22nd – June 7th

Reuben Brown — June 19th – 5th July

Lucy Andrews — July 17th – August 2nd

Kathryn Maguire — September 11th – 27th

Gary Farrelly — October 9th – 25th

Caroline Mac Cathmhaoil — 6th – 22nd November

—

Pallas Projects/Studios is one of Ireland’s longest running artist-run spaces, with a dedicated tradition over 28 years towards the professional development of artists in a peer-led, supportive environment, providing opportunities for emerging and mid-career artists to develop and exhibit new work. PP/S have established a nationwide and international reputation among artists and organisations, and a public profile through successful and critically engaged exhibitions, publishing, collaborations and partnerships, and education programmes for schools. Recent projects include the 4-year research project and publication ‘Artist-Run Europe’, published by Onomatopee, Eindhoven in 2016, and the annual ‘Periodical Review’ exhibition now in its thirteenth year.

Entangled Life
Curated by Cristina Nicotra
May–December 2025

Entangled Life, supported by Community Foundation Ireland, is a programme exploring the deep connections between climate, society, and the ecosystems where art and community intertwine. This initiative unravels heterogeneous climate and social topics, by understanding ecology as a complex web of relationships—between humans, the more-than-human world, and political and natural environments.

Entangled Life aims to provide space to facilitate a network of relationships, collaboration and engagement within the community. Over the course of 8 months the project will bring together community participants, artists and experts – including Lisa Fitzsimons (Strategy and Sustainability Lead at Irish Museum of Modern Art), Eileen Hutton PhD (Head of Art and Ecology at Burren College of Art), and Gareth Kennedy (artist, lecturer and lead coordinator on NCAD FIELD) – for a series of monthly panel talks, workshops and artistic interventions at Pallas Projects, culminating in an exhibition in December 2025.

The project draws inspiration from Merlin Sheldrake’s book of the same name, which explores the interconnected mycelium worlds that allow for unexpected possibilities, and Joanna Macy’s principles of ‘Active Hope’, which emphasize knowledge, compassion and action. With the final goal of promoting a decarbonised future, the project explores the links between climate issues and society, and shows how they are relevant in our daily life and our community.

The events series will provide diverse perspectives and room for direct interaction among participants through a non-linear, non-hierarchical approach, fostering exploration and critical thinking, considering mental wellbeing. This multidisciplinary initiative feeds the need to provide opportunities for influencing and activating change effectively. It allows the community to learn about climate issues, react, and co-create diverse, dynamic and unpredictable connections and inspirations. Feedback and reactions collected throughout the programme will be compiled into a toolkit report.

In all, seven topics will be unravelled and discussed through open panel discussions, workshops beginning with The Art of Just Transition on Wednesday 14th of May, with Rachel Fallon, Artist; Dr Egle Gusciute, Assistant Professor in Sociology, UCD; and Michelle Murphy, Research & Policy Analyst with Social Justice Ireland and member of Just Transition Commission.

Events Schedule

14th May The Art of Just Transition (Talk)

11th June Discovering biomaterials in art and society (Talk)

9th July Art and biomaterials (Workshop)

3rd September Beyond Words: communicating sustainability (Talk)

1st October Intersectionality in art and climate (Talk)

29th October Climate and Art: programming & advocacy (Talk)

27th November Entangled Life (Exhibition opening)

3rd December Climate crisis and mental health (Workshops)

17th December Climate activism and socially engaged art (Talk)

Events take place Wednesdays, 6–8pm. Participants are welcome to attend some or all events. Places can be booked via Eventbrite, but there will be a places for walk-ins subject to availability

IMMA presents a solo exhibition by Sam Gilliam (1933 – 2022), one of the great innovators in post-war American painting, co-organised with the Sam Gilliam Foundation. Emerging in the mid-1960s, his canonical ‘Drape’ paintings merged painting, sculpture, and performance in conversation with architecture in entirely new ways. Suspending unstretched lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed.

Sewing Fields highlights Gilliam’s connection to Ireland, where a transformative residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in the 1990s reshaped his artistic practice. Gilliam embraced new materials, working with pre-stained fabrics that he had shipped to Ireland, cutting and layering them into sculptural compositions. A collaboration with a local dressmaker further expanded this process, reinforcing his innovative fusion of painting and textile techniques.

The dramatic, undulating forms in his work resonate with the vastness and wildness of the Irish coast, featuring loose, flowing compositions that reflect the organic and unpredictable nature of the land and sea. Gilliam’s signature vibrant colour fields were influenced by the unique Irish light, resulting in atmospheric, almost translucent hues. By moving away from the rigid geometry of modernism, Gilliam’s work in Ireland fostered an intuitive dialogue with the surrounding environment, celebrating the physicality of painting and the emotional resonance of place through abstraction and materiality.

This exhibition continues IMMA’s engagement with artists whose work has received renewed attention and accolades in recent years that has included Howardena Pindell (2023), Derek Jarman (2019), and Frank Bowling (2018).

Exhibition Opening: Saturday 9th August, 3.00 – 5.00pm. All Welcome.

Butler Gallery, in association with Kilkenny Arts Festival, is delighted to present an exhibition exploring the theme of ‘Cities of the World’ by two artists, Kathy Prendergast and Chris Leach. The two have never met, but are intrinsically linked by this subject matter which they realise in very different ways.

Kathy Prendergast, an Irish London-based artist, is represented by her suite of 113 City Drawings which were begun in 1992. Owned by IMMA, they have not been exhibited in many years. Based on contemporary maps of the world’s capital cities, Prendergast compresses each city, large and small, and follows her own sense of scale to contain each city on the same size paper. Transcribing the network of lines with understated pencil marks she conveys the pattern of routes through, within and around each city, imposing an unfathomable sense of democracy on the world. The skeletal images reduce even the largest and most powerful communities to a delicate network of lines that resemble organic patterns in nature.

Chris Leach, a British Manchester-based artist, began his Capital Cities drawing project in 2012 and continued until 2022. He has completed 196 tiny drawings of every recognised capital city in the world which together functions as one piece of work. Leach’s miniature drawings are solidly three-dimensional, drawn with pencil, scalpel and burnishing tools on the gessoed face of an oak block. Leach is interested in how scale can be used as a tool for both psychological and representational investigation.

The cities work by Kathy Prendergast and Chris Leach is a fascinating juxtaposition and prompts wider discussions around geography, architecture and politics—what cities say about us and what they don’t.

Additionally, a film programme ‘City as Character’ will highlight iconic cities in both mainstream and art house cinema. Co-curated by Butler Gallery and Out of Focus, films will be shown in the Digital Gallery and also in collaboration with the Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny.

Anna O’Sullivan
Director & Exhibition Curator

Learning & Public Engagement Events:

Artists Kathy Prendergast and Chris Leach in conversation with exhibition curator Anna O’Sullivan and Dr Yvonne Scott, Tuesday 12th August 2025 at 12.00pm, Parade Tower, Kilkenny Castle. Free ticketed event, available to book on the Kilkenny Arts Festival website.

Dr Yvonne Scott is an Emeritus Fellow and former Associate Professor of History of Art at Trinity College Dublin.
She was awarded the RHA Gold Medal for 2025 in recognition of her services to Irish art. She has researched and published extensively in modern and contemporary art, including analysis of various aspects of the work of artist Kathy Prendergast. Her most recent book is Landscape and Environment in Contemporary Irish Art, published by Churchill House Press in association with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2023.

Image: (L) Kathy Prendergast, Mexico City from ‘City Drawings’, 1992, Pencil on Paper, 24 x 32cm, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art, Purchase 1996, © Kathy Prendergast. (R) Chris Leach, Tallin, Estonia, Pencil, scalpel, burnishing tool, rabbit skin gesso on quarter sawn oak, 32 x 43mm (From Capital Cities series 2013-2023)

Exhibition continues from 23rd August to 1st November 2025

A major solo exhibition by artist Maud Cotter maelstrom presents a group of works which seek to examine the complexity of the present, and engages with the complexity and form of change as process, with works that reference the dual directionality of time, and the relational nature of matter.

This exhibition of large scale works by this established Irish artist responds to the complexity and spatial range of the site of Highlanes Gallery across its two floors.

Integrated into the exhibition is a stream of engagement with the historic and contemporary work from the Drogheda Municipal Art Collection.

Within the exhibition of new and recent large-scale sculpture and installation is the eponymous work – maelstrom which Maud Cotter describes as ‘a spiral, a whirling stream.’

She adds ‘this phenomenon I see as an expression of the nature of change, a complex form which expands and ingests space; a dual directional dynamic, ingesting spent form and offering a different conceptual direction.’

Writer and critic Rebecca Geldard has written recently on Cotter’s practice:

‘In Marcel Marceau’s stage routine, there is a perfectly choreographed moment of suspension that goes unnoticed by the audience, Maud Cotter explains. It serves to amplify the physicality of his feat, the ability to hold sinew and bone in time and freeze imperceptibly. But this is only noticeable in the wings, from where she draws him. Beyond the stage, the interruption of energy, of flow, appears to change nothing but, in fact, changes everything about the energy field. With the muscular elegance of the gymnast or the pervasive creep of a musical score, the slight shift in mood silently alters the parameters of what’s performatively possible.’

‘Interconnectedness, at the molecular level, is the driver of Cotter’s sculptural enquiry; manifesting moments of “imperfect geometry” at the core of where things, beings, ideas and environments meet. Whether daring to ‘draw’ this massively in metal, manufacture it through the placement of pre-existing materials, or orchestrate the essential bits in between, any sense of artistic coercion is only ever, and oh so lightly, custodial, however hands-on the process. Each fixing, inscribed section, loop of archi-graphic script, is allowed to speak with its own energy as part of a quietly insistent ensemble cast, leading us beyond the need for meaning and on towards a collective sense of being in the thick of it – soaring, spiralling, feeling that all things seem to touch so they are.’

The Office of Public Works and Dublin City Arts Office are pleased to present a new exhibition of work by Eithne Jordan RHA curated by Margarita Cappock. It takes place at the Casino Marino, Cherrymount Crescent, Marino, Dublin 3, D03 HH70.

The exhibition is open everyday from 10.00am to 5.00pm and admission to the exhibition is free.

About the Artist
Eithne Jordan is one of Ireland’s pre-eminent painters. In this exhibition, Jordan has turned her artistic gaze to the interiors of public and private spaces, such as museums and institutional buildings, which she has visited on her travels in Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland and the United States. Jordan explores the way paintings, sculptures and artefacts are displayed in these spaces. She creates paintings that are, in her words, ‘emotional landscapes’. Jordan is drawn to exhibiting in unusual spaces where her work can interact with their surroundings as in this exhibition at the Casino Marino. Her paintings reflect her enduring interest in architecture and the interplay that can happen between her paintings and their environment, whether a modernist space or a historic building.

The resonance of this new body of work – most from the last five years – displayed in the rooms of the Casino creates the ‘echo’ of an ongoing conversation with the eighteenth century, which is why the artist chose this as the exhibition title. Eithne Jordan grew up in Clontarf, not far from the Casino. She states, ‘The Casino has an air of grandeur but it also has that sense of intimacy in the beauty of its proportions. It is one of the things that I love about it.’

Funded by the OPW and Dublin City Arts Office with the support of the Arts Council.

Sculpture in Context Celebrates 40 Years at the National Botanic Gardens, Dublin

Ireland’s largest and longest-running sculpture exhibition, Sculpture in Context, proudly celebrates its 40th anniversary at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin from Thursday 4th September to Friday 10th October 2025.

Much beloved by the public, Sculpture in Context is a pivotal event in the Irish arts calendar. Over the last four decades the unique presentation of ambitious and contemporary three-dimensional work by leading creative talent, has provided the public with memorable experiences. Sculpture in Context is the largest and longest running sculpture exhibition in Ireland, giving free access to an annual audience of over 100,000.

The exciting range of sculptures to be presented were selected from over 500 entries submitted via open call. The selection of the exhibits was made by a panel of three independent fellow sculptors. Selected artists include Róisín De Buitléar, Ester Barrett, Fiona Smith, Alva Gallagher, Ayelet Lalor, Ray Delaney, Helen Merrigan Colfer, amongst others.

As part of the anniversary celebration, the exhibition also welcomes several distinguished invited artists. Among them are Eilis O’Connell, Alison Kaye, Ken Drew, Ana Duncan, Seamus Gill, Beatrice Stewart, Ciaran Patterson, Penny Lacey, Michelle Maher, and Richard Healy, whose contributions further enrich this 40th anniversary exhibition.

Sculpture in Context will run from Thursday 4th September to Friday 10th October; is free to visit and all are welcome. The National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin will be open 9.00am to 5.00pm on weekdays and 10.00am to 6.00pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays.

Sculpture in Context is a non-profit voluntary organisation and is proceeding this year owing to the goodwill and support of OPW, private sponsorship and personal donations. Sculpture in Context extends heartfelt thanks to the many artists who applied this year and to all those who have contributed to its success over the past 40 years.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Dates: 4th September – 10th October 2025
Venue: National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9
Opening Hours:

Weekdays: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Weekends & Bank Holidays: 10.00am – 6.00pm
Admission: Free – All are welcome

Curated by Francis Halsall and Belinda Quirke

Of Peras and Apeiron is a group exhibition of artists who explore systematic processes as an inherent part of their practice. Halsall and Quirke have curated a selection of work that explores the different numerical, geometrical and methodical systems that can be used to make art. They have found artists who both explore the potential of the infinite and unbounded (Aperion) whilst acknowledging they will always be bound by limits (Peras). The resulting work reveals approaches that are mathematical and rational, fictional and personal whilst exploring the deep creativity of systems made by humans and other agents.

Gerard Caris (Nederlands) devoted his arts practice to endless applications of what he termed pentagonism in drawing, print and sculpture.

Channa Horwitz’s (US) extraordinary system of notation, Sonakinatography embeds colour, sound and motion into unparalleled logic scores. Working methodically on common US graph paper with eight squares to the inch, Horwitz’s Sonakinatography allows the artist to “see time visually”, and create a universal notational language for creative interpretation.

Roy Johnston’s (NI) work of the late sixties to early eighties, employs rigorous Pythagorean rationalism and colour permutation both in sculptural form and 2D relief. Neil Clements (NI/Scotland) sets the year 1968 as a control method in deference to Johnston’s “Systems”. Facsimiles of abstract paintings characterised as peripheral to central art historical narratives are recreated by the artist in tread plate. Ronnie Hughes (IRE) memetic paintings thwart mathematical exactitudes through symmetrical slippages that optically and somatically perplex the viewer.

The grid is often referenced in Grace McMurray’s (NI) practice as both a tool, and framing device to the quiet, hidden fabrication of gendered labour. McMurray uses drawing, patchwork, knitting, and weaving within their work, seeking succor in memetic, geometric construction of handcrafted textiles.

Possible Utopian futures are explored in both Dannielle Tegeder’s (US) and Suzanne Treister’s (UK) practice. Tegeder summons the cosmological and the spiritual by means of invented sigils within fabricated urban schematics, whilst Treister’s multi-planetary, fictional persona, and tech futurism frequently allude to the Kabbalistic gematria and mystic systems.

Exhibition Opening: Friday 5th September at 6pm, all welcome

A bent knee at a vaguely familiar stranger
Another known face driving a taxi,
An accent switch when new friends appear
– only to be switched once more when they leave,
Ori on forehead

This series of collages explores how class and race affect how people move through the world, the jobs taken, spaces occupied. Reflecting on the lives of the Nigerian diaspora living in Ireland these works display the oddities of finding a home in a ‘foreign’ land while maintaining, engaging in and creating culture. Family Trees hang over Property Lines showcases the small encounters, subtle gestures and interactions that are kin to Black and Irish people.

Fiyin Oluokun is recipient of the 2024 ‘Emerging Visual Artist Bursary Award’ supported by Kildare County Council Arts Service and Riverbank Arts Centre.

McKenna Gallery
Friday 5 September-Saturday 25 October
Monday-Friday 9:30am-5pm | Saturday 10am-4pm
Admission Free

In ‘The Sibyls’, Alice Maher presents a series of monumental drawings of female figures entangled in, or twisting free from, vast snaking mounds of hair. At the base of these drawings the artist has placed small piles of highly polished, irregular objects—amorphous forms that resemble great globs of mercury.

The title of the series, The Sibyls, references the oracular women of archaic times, seers who lived apart from society and were believed to channel the prophesies of the divine. In Renaissance art these figures were transformed into biblical prophetesses, pictured holding scrolls or books, as in Michelangelo’s majestic turban-clad sibyls in the Sistine chapel. Maher’s Sibyls are different – rather than resting serenely in the architecture of institutional belief or patriarchal systems of meaning, these Sibyls are altogether more dynamic and equivocal. Their scrolls have morphed into chaotic skeins of hair; their turbans twisted into massive living organisms that envelop, extend from, and consume their heads, while their powerful bodies struggle and strain to impart their portentous message…

…Culturally coded as either dangerous or shameful depending on its context, hair becomes here a visual agent of instability. Are the Sibyls coming into being through this dense matrix of bodily material, or are they caught in the web of their own weaving? Are they rising or falling, emerging or succumbing? The signs are deliberately destabilising; their meanings are as slippery and shifting as the mysterious sculptural shapes tumbled below.’

Extract from an Accompanying Text written by Dr Sarah Kelleher.

Scraperboard and Watercolour by Brian Gallagher

Exhibition officially opened by Alan Keane of The Artist’s Well
Thursday 11th September 2025 at 7.30pm

September 11th until October 12th 2025

Viewing Times
11am to 5pm Monday
11am to 9pm Tuesday – Friday
Saturdays 5pm – 10pm

www.bdgart.com

In this installation of large-scale colourful oil paintings, sculptures and plexiglass mirrors Karen Ebbs explores ideas relating to reflection, perception and reality. At the heart of the work is colour, life-affirming and transformative. In a time of ecological and social challenge, Ebbs uses colour as a quiet rebellion against grey apathy to offer hope. Using mirrors, the boundaries between the artworks and the individual collapse. Viewers are confronted with their own reflections as they become interwoven with the artworks. Through this interaction visitors become part of an ever-changing installation which is continuously altered by their presence. This idea challenges the notion of separation and how we perceive ourselves, offering viewers an opportunity to pause.

Karen Ebbs is a Dublin-based artist and a member of Pallas Projects and Studios. She received a Masters in Fine Art, in painting from NCAD in 2023 and was subsequently shortlisted for the RDS Visual Arts Awards. She also studied at the Royal Hibernian Academy School, Dublin. Recent solo exhibitions include Rathfarnham Castle, 2024, Farmleigh Estate, 2022 and the LAB Gallery, Dublin, 2022. In 2022, Karen received an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland and a Professional Development Award from dlr Arts Office.
Our Gallery Learning Programme has lots of workshops, tours for all ages and opportunities to learn more and try different artmaking techniques. See our website for information: www.dlrcoco.ie/arts.

The form of photographic practice has expanded in recent times and the RHA invited artists to respond to the spatial magnitude of the largest gallery in Ireland, with many responding to the open spaces with in-the-round works to create something beyond the typical photo show. Pictured here is: the prosaic everyday made poetic; reflections on both psychic and human-altered landscapes; art documentary; constructed abstractions; observations on borders, invisible and hidden; meditations on sexuality and objectification; the interconnectedness of nature and reflections on Ireland losing its welcoming spirit. Throughout it all, a collage of Irish cultural identity—and our contemporary photographers’ place within it—is revealed.

This exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the RHA’s exhibition department and the artist-led group Island Photographers, who foster engagement with and understanding of photography in Ireland, both in the fine art realm and the broader lens-based culture industry through talks, events and workshops. All eight members are participating in the show.

Laura McMorrow’s paintings draw on found imagery of figures working in the garden, altered landscapes (topiary and hedging), plants, and people enjoying gardens and green spaces.
McMorrow learned everything she knows about gardening from her mother Gillian. An avid gardener and obsessive weeder, Gillian tended to her garden in North Leitrim by making decisions about which plants belong and deserve to self-seed and which become a nuisance. Her approach to gardening was naturalistic and looked effortless, but she was extremely dedicated to her craft.

Out in the garden, in all weather until dusk, it became a form of therapy for her as she suffered with a chronic and fatal illness. The garden became a sanctuary for Gillian and a source of inspiration for Laura who began researching and making work about gardens in her studio practice. Poet and gardener Ross Gay describes time spent gardening as “an exercise in supreme attentiveness”, a trait it shares with painting.

A stop motion animation created using a paint on glass technique is exhibited alongside the paintings. Each frame is hand painted, giving it a painterly and expressive aesthetic. The animation illustrates a quote by the filmmaker Derek Jarman in the book Modern Nature, a journal of his time spent gardening in Dungeness shortly after he discovered he was HIV positive.

The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end. A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours, lunch breaks, the last bus home. As you walk in the garden you pass into this time — the moment of entering can never be remembered. Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer. Derek Jarman.

McMorrow is interested in a personal exploration of the garden as a sanctuary and a space of refuge. However, she is also questioning the complexity of gardening in a time of climate emergency and the futile act of attempting to control and tame nature. The transition to a more ecologically friendly approach to gardening, for example, growing a wildflower meadow instead of a lawn. McMorrow embraces this duality of gardening as a form of therapy and its disposition in the greater context of our time.

Laura McMorrow is a visual artist from Leitrim. She holds a Masters in Fine art from the University of Ulster in Belfast (2012) and she graduated with a degree in painting from Limerick School of Art and Design (2008). Her practice incorporates video installation, animation, sculpture, collage, and painting.
Recent solo exhibitions include The Gardener Digs at The Dock and The Lost Acre at Leitrim Sculpture Centre. Recent community art projects include a collaborative animation project with teenagers funded by Creative Ireland and a sensory mapping project with Leitrim Cycling Festival.
McMorrow is part of the collective, who run an artist-led studio and experimental space in Manorhamilton, Leitrim. Her studio is currently based in the collective space. In 2023, the collective worked together on a collaborative project called Waking the Land that considered environmental grief, supported by the Irish Hospice Foundation.

All works in the exhibition, The Known and Unknown World, have taken a drawing of a five-legged cat by George McCutcheon as their initial point of reference. This work, made in 1996 remains the logo of KCAT to this day. This unusual creature exists at the centre of a sprawling exhibition that mirrors the multi-layered design of a Wunderkammer.

From the 16th century onwards these cabinets of curiosities mixed items from the arts, the natural world, and the sciences to present idiosyncratic views of existence. Juxtaposing local landmarks with fantastical landscapes, common songbirds with speculatively designed creatures, human portraits with extra-planetary beings, The Known and Unknown World invites the viewer to discover and celebrate the multiplicity of ways in which the world can be experienced, understood, and recorded.

Artists featured in this exhibition include: Andrew Pike, Brianna Hurley, Declan Byrne, Diana Chambers, Erin Hacking, Eileen Mulrooney, Fergus Fitzgerald, Fintin Kelly, Jason Turner, Karl Fitzgerald, Lorna Corrigan, Margaret Walker, Shay Croke, Sinead Fahey, Thomas Barron, Mary Cody, Francis Casey, Jack Foskin and George McCutcheon.

Curated by Benjamin Stafford in cooperation with KCAT Studio. This exhibition was first shown at KCAT Art Centre, Callan, Co. Kilkenny as part of the Kilkenny Arts Festival, 2025.

Marianne Keating’s upcoming exhibition brings together two new films that interrogate Ireland’s shifting place within histories of nationalism, migration, and global power. Cad Leis a Bhfuilimíd Ailínithe / To What Do We Align (2025) is a multi-channel film that reflects on Éamon de Valera’s idealised vision of Ireland, its economic stagnation and mass emigration, and the country’s subsequent reorientation under Seán Lemass, as Ireland chose to align itself with Western hegemony rather than the newly formed Non-Aligned Movement.

No Irish Need Apply (2025) examines the experience of the Irish in Britain during the 1970s and 80s, a period when political violence in Northern Ireland fuelled systemic discrimination, surveillance, and social prejudice against Irish communities. Together, these works explore how Ireland has been both the subject of, and complicit in, wider histories of colonialism, migration, and exclusion, revealing the contradictions at the heart of national identity

Marianne Keating is an Irish artist and researcher based in London. She holds a practice-based PhD in Visual & Material Culture and Contemporary Art Practice entitled, ‘They don’t do much in the cane-hole way’, Hidden Histories of the Irish Diaspora in Jamaica, funded by KSA at Kingston University, London and a TECHNE Associate. She has an MA in Fine Art from the Royal College of Art, London and a BA in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art and Design, Ireland. She is currently an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London (2020- Present).

Keating was shortlisted to represent Ireland in the 2022 Venice Biennial and has exhibited extensively throughout Ireland and internationally. Upcoming and recent exhibitions include (2025)The Irish Pavilion, World Expo, Japan; The Model, Sligo; Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick; Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford, Ireland. Collections include The Office of Public Works, Ireland; Royal College of Art, London; Norlinda and José Lima Collection, Portugal; Zuckerman Museum of Art, Georgia, USA; Palazzo Fogazzaro, Vicenza, Italy.

Exhibition continues from the 13th of September 2025 to the 18th of October 2025

This September, Graphic Studio Gallery presents One Tree, a new body of Mokuhanga prints and unique works by Ed Miliano. The exhibition is supported by IPUT Real Estate Dublin.

The show centres on a single tree — a recurring subject that appears throughout the works, explored across changing seasons, moods, and materials.

Miliano lived in Japan for four years, where he studied traditional Mokuhanga printmaking with Master printer Takahashi Yo. In One Tree, he revisits this centuries-old technique – making it his own – combining it with collage, painting, and gold leaf. His materials include pages from vintage books and magazines, hand-painted and printed papers, and Japanese Chiyogami papers, all layered to create depth and texture.

In one series, the tree is shown through the four seasons, each on a plain white background. In another, it appears against a luminous gold ground, evoking the gilded surfaces of classical Japanese screen paintings. In some of the works, he draws on Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, using Bosch’s fantastical birds to animate the branches in a surreal fusion of print and paint.

Originally from New York, Miliano studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He now lives and works in Dublin, Ireland, and is a member of Graphic Studio Dublin. His practice spans painting, sculpture, and printmaking, and his work is held in a range of public and private collections including the Department of Foreign Affairs, IPUT, OPW, Arthur Cox, and Joseph Walshe Studios.

Collectively, SOD SCRAPER examines the shifting relationship between Ireland’s landscape, its histories, and the hidden architectures of the global data economy. The exhibition explores the intersections of personal narrative, contested land, industrial expansion, and the cultural re-framing of digital infrastructure. Together, the artworks form a layered portrait of a country where global capital reshapes ancient ground, where personal histories collide with corporate expansion, and where the monumental can be both a stone circle and a server farm. SOD SCRAPER asks, who owns the […]

Jason McCarthy’s personal ode to Drogheda, his hometown, encompasses everyday urban spaces, housing, streets, forgotten corners,
dereliction, the post-industrial, and the edge lands where the urban gradually gives way to the rural and the ebb and flow of the
majestic river Boyne.

McCarthy’s striking portraits are of the people who inhabit these places. All are looking directly at the camera and hence at the
viewer, each person confident in their body language, presentation, and individuality.

Hometown speaks of rootedness, belonging, and connection. Of being shaped by a place and also being intrinsic to shaping it.
McCarthy’s photographs are imbued with insight, quietness, and stillness that give a particular perspective on his hometown and
encourage us to look more deeply at our own home places.

Evolving Landscapes is a critical reflection on the urgent need for climate action in the face of escalating ecological instability. As biodiversity declines and environmental thresholds are crossed, artistic practices increasingly turn to embodied, site-responsive methods that engage directly with damaged ecosystems and communities on the frontlines of change.

This exhibition, curated by Valeria Ceregini, brings together the work of Louis Haugh, Tadhg Kinsella, and Laura Skehan.
Evolving Landscapes is commissioned by Fingal County Council for Culture Night 2025.

THE SWALLOW, Tadhg O’Sullivan’s new feature, starring Academy Award winner Brenda Fricker, will open in select Irish cinemas from 19 September.
The film presents a meditation on art, memory and solitude in later life, through an artist exploring memories and fragments of the past while trying to make sense of her own unwillingness to let go.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/marmaladefilms/theswallowofficialtrailer

Tickets available via https://linktr.ee/marmaladefilms

The Swallow was funded by The Arts Council/An Comhairle Ealaíon, under the Authored Works scheme.

Exhibition continues from the 19th of September to the 24th of October 2025

Presented by the Crespo Foundation and Goethe-Institut Irland, and curated by Ben Livne Weitzman, this exhibition brings together the work of two artist groups and former artists in residence in Glenkeen Garden, West Cork: Through two installations and an accompanying book, the artists take us on a journey to the transitional zones surrounding Glenkeen Garden, reflecting on time preserved in the bogs of the Irish landscape, and the ever-shifting rhythms and forms of the coastline.

Transitional Terrains is the fifth exhibition in The Glenkeen Variations series.

The woman who put a tree on top of a castle is back with a brand-new 18-piece exhibit.

Collection reflects on global and personal challenges, from war and climate change to growing up with dyslexia and losing a parent.
‘From the depths of shadow, light takes shape’

In her new exhibition Out of the Shadows in the Solomon Gallery, Dublin, 25thSeptember – 18th October, Irish sculptor Orla de Brí invites us into a world where the unseen resides. A sculptural 18-piece exploration of the individual and collective shadows we all encounter in life – fear, change, loss, silence – this ninth solo collection of work from de Brí is about resilience and transformation, nurturing strength and finding unexpected light. As de Brí describes it, each piece offers an opportunity to witness vulnerability, wildness and endurance, as from the depths of shadow, light takes shape.

Dublin-born de Brí took her first sculpture course at the young age of 12, an adult night class in North Strand Technical School, her mother persuading the school to let her daughter join the class despite her young age. This was the first step in a career that has led to the creation of 27 large-scale public sculptures across the globe, prestigious showcases in the likes of Sotheby’s, and custom-made pieces for public figures like Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-apartheid activist Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Predominantly working with bronze, steel and fibreglass, Orla has exhibited in cities such as London, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, as well as featuring in numerous prominent public and private collections here in Ireland and abroad – with one of her most striking pieces being ‘Thinking Man’, the incredible 5-metre 24ct gold leafed tree and 3-metre human figure standing tall atop Belvelly Castle in Co. Cork.

Out of the Shadows will run in the Solomon Gallery, Dublin from 25th September -18th October. For the artist, her hope is that people connect with her work on an emotional level and ultimately see something of themselves in it.

VISUAL is pleased to present Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood. This landmark touring exhibition has been conceived by Hettie Judah in collaboration with Hayward Gallery Touring. Following a successful tour of the UK, Acts of Creation comes to VISUAL augmented by the inclusion of works from Irish artists and collections.

Spanning all of VISUAL’s galleries, Acts of Creation presents work in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, photography and sound that speaks to the experience of motherhood in all its complexity. At VISUAL, an accompanying in-depth learning programme will respond to the exhibition’s themes and works. A reading area, a reflection space and specialist workshops and tours will further provide visitors with ways to engage with the ideas and experiences reflected in this powerful exhibition.

Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood plunges into the joys and heartaches, mess, myths and mishaps of motherhood through over 100 artworks, from the Women’s Movement of the 1960s and 70s to the present day.
While the Madonna and Child is one of the great subjects of European art, we rarely see art about real motherhood, in all its complexity. Acts of Creation addresses this blind spot in art history, asserting the artist mother as an important cultural figure.
How does the image of motherhood change when the artist is drawing on lived experience? What is made visible? What challenges are levelled at motherhood as an institution through which the mother is idealised as self-sacrificing, wholesome, tireless and uncomplaining?
Diverse experiences are explored across four thematic displays. Creation looks at conception, pregnancy, birth and nursing. It imagines motherhood as a creative act, albeit one in which joy might be tempered with anxiety, pain and exhaustion.
Maintenance is dedicated to the ongoing work of motherhood and caregiving in the day-to-day. Here we find artists engaged in domestic chores, keeping children safe, and navigating a balance between art and parenting.
In Loss artists reflect on experiences of miscarriage, adoption and involuntary childlessness. Works in this section also protest the loss of women’s reproductive rights.
The Temple is a series of self-portraits in which artists explore their own identity in relation to motherhood. For decades women were told they could not be both an artist and a mother. These portraits stand in defiance of that idea.

This exhibition features artworks that include nudity and explore childbirth, (in)fertility, miscarriage, abortion, loss and domestic abuse.

Exhibition continues 20 September – 1 November 2025.

Gerard Byrne, Artist of the Baggotonia Festival 2025 presents ‘Light Falls: Ode to Baggotonia’, set in his intimate Ranelagh studio + gallery. Byrne captures Dublin’s unique light—the glow between buildings, canal shimmers, shadows folding into foliage. The show features contemplative still lifes, dreamy urbanscapes, and bold figuratives. Reflecting on Georgian streets and the city’s Bohemian soul where Beckett, Behan, and Bacon once walked, Byrne transforms everyday sights into lyrical meditations on light, memory, and place—continuing Ireland’s Impressionist legacy with contemporary insight.

Norio Ishiwata and Chifumi Ishiwata formed the art unit Orinotawashi after their marriage. Based in Tokyo, they began by creating collage works, working together to complete each single piece. In 2013, they dedicated themselves to art, participating in artist-in-residence programs in five countries: Spain, Italy, Zambia, Egypt, and Morocco. Their travels abroad inspired them to focus on the theme of “art for living.” In Spain, they met Irish artist Mark Redden, whose traditional Irish boat, the Currach, and his artistic style influenced them.

Opening Launch on Thursday 2nd October 7pm
Creative Spark is proud to present Glór | Ciúnas, a group exhibition showcasing new work by artists from the 2024/25 Artist-in-Residence Programme. Featuring a vibrant mix of painting, print, installation, sculpture, and mixed media, the exhibition brings together work by Aoife Cawley, Klowi, Claire McAteer, Colleen Eilís Murphy, Nicola Moran, Áine Dunne, Maria Atanacković, and Eimear Murphy. The title Glór | Ciúnas translating as Loud | Silence reflects the work created by this year’s artists. Some using bright, bold colours to express energy and stories while others create subtle, quiet works that invite you to reflect. Glór | Ciúnas marks the eleventh year of the artists-in-Residence exhibition hosted in an Táin Arts Centre.
The Creative Spark Residency Programme, supported by The Arts Service of Louth County Council and the Arts Council of Ireland, is dedicated to providing essential support to artists.

Opening reception: Thursday 02 October 2025, 6–8pm

Frank Sweeney’s new film, ‘Go Ye Afar’, follows the journey of an Irish-Nigerian taxi driver on a miraculous voyage through the streets of Dublin and Calabar. Using a range of techniques and sources, from reenacted interviews and archival footage to rear-projection and Nollywood-inspired special effects, a series of characters are transported through interconnected sites in Ireland and Nigeria.

Exhibition continues from the 3rd of October to the 2nd of November 2025

This show will bring together the work of 34 incredible emerging artists, with more than 55 pieces filling the gallery. From painting and print to photography and mixed media, there’s going to be such an amazing mix of ideas, styles and voices, it’s going to be full of energy and discovery.

The opening night is happening on Friday, 3rd October, 7–9 pm. Bring your friends, come meet the artists, have a glass of wine, and celebrate with us. Opening nights are always such a buzz, and this one is going to be special.

Open Saturday and Sundays 12-6pm (closed on the 18th and 19th)

Metamorphosis is a giant plastic temporary art installation situated in the Newman building that provides students, faculty staff, UCD workers and visitors with a performative-educational space for reflection and free expression. Draw. Write. Perform. Participate.

This installation is part of the research project ‘Imagined Sustainabilities’, funded by UCD Sustainability and the Humanities Institute, and led by Eva Bru-Domínguez and Ana Vera.

Exhibition continues from the 3rd of October to the 15th of November 2025.

When Stars Collide is a multimedia installation that reshapes the gallery floor with paths of sand and heaps of gravel, where an array of fallen stars and a decapitated bronze head reside. The head becomes both relic and narrator, voicing its dilemmas and contemplations: the embodiment of the night sky, recalled fragments of memory, inherited beliefs, the body it lost, its disappointments, and its hope, all while waiting… waiting for what comes next. Drifting between analysis and poetry, the head loops back and forth, reflecting upon the spectrum of existence within the space and time it currently occupies.

Self, pet and a bathtub is a triangle of elements arranged as a composition in this oil on linen painting whose title is also the title of the whole show. 

The bathtub is from my locality at the fields around my studio in county Donegal where farmers arrange bathtubs arbitrarily in the landscape for their cows and bulls to drink from. Once an intimate function in a household now these are curious shapes in open spaces resembling alienation and corrosion on their way back to the elements of metal and earth.  

Opening reception Wednesday 8th October. 6pm. After Party – United Arts Club. 8pm. Exhibition continues until 25th October. Artist and writer Gabriel Murray will commemorate the famous Colony Room Club with an exhibition of portraits depicting some of the more illustrious members of the club. A haven for London’s artistic elite, it closed in 2008. Curated by Tony Strickland.

Over the past 15 years, Sean Molloy has investigated and deconstructed the baroque painting canon. Initially, this took the form of portraiture, primarily via the unsettling representation of Philip IV by Velazquez, later leading to exploration of the baroque landscape canon, in particular the works of Berchem, Ruisdael, Cuyp and Wouwerman. From 2014, he focussed on creating capricci, imagined landscapes composited from references in the baroque canon, occasionally including staffage and overlain with disruptive, superimposed and highly-saturated ‘glitch’ elements.

Picasso lived surrounded by his art. His personal life and his work, his homes and his studios were always intimately linked. The exhibition places Picasso in the context of his studios, highlighting the various facets and phases of his art and life. It will explore the key locations that defined him, from his arrival in Paris at the start of the twentieth century to his studio in Mas Notre-Dame de Vie (1961-1973) in Mougins. The exhibition will feature paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and works on paper, as well as photographic and audio-visual works.

For her solo exhibition at The LAB Gallery, Ní Mhaonaigh presents a new series of small-scale works that build on the learning of earlier paintings, while chronicling some interesting departures. In tracing a landscape in flux, these works can be loosely categorised into three groupings: canvas studies of organic structures, read as floral, mossy, or tree-like; linear and geometric forms, etched into smooth, silvery backgrounds; and a set of intricate works on board, incorporating vast asymmetrical arcs. 

In this quietly powerful series, In Transit, Ginnity captures the choreography of public transport. With empathy and wit, the artist transforms the daily ritual of commuting into a quiet theatre of human behaviour. We see glances avoided, elbows akimbo, phones riveting and bags clutched like protective armour as people navigate the awkwardness of intimate proximity with strangers. We don’t just witness strangers in motion – we recognise ourselves.

Whether you are familiar with the intricacies of public transport or not, In Transit is well worth a visit.

Internationally renowned photographer Steve Pyke undertook a year-long residency at Photo Museum Ireland, completing his landmark book Scribendi: Portraits of Irish Writers 1985-2025. This stunning book contains over 100 portraits of leading contemporary Irish writers, reflecting the diversity and vitality of Irish literature. Join us for this exclusive pre-launch talk where Steve will be in conversation with writer Timothy O’Grady. The conversation will be followed by the official launch of the book and exhibition.

Please note that booking is required for this event.

The gallery is pleased to announce the launch of These Magnetic Magnitudes, a publication by Solstice Arts Centre of works by Cecilia Danell.

This publication, designed by Pure Designs, features a Foreward by Belinda Quirke and commissioned texts by Charity Coleman and Aidan Dunne.

Join us at the gallery on Thursday 9th October from 6-7pm. The publication is an Edition of 400 and will be available on the night, priced at €20.

Published by Solstice Arts Centre (Navan) on the occasion of the exhibition These Magnetic Magnitudes by Cecilia Danell, curated by Brenda McParland.