Talking Threads is a contemporary textile exhibition by mature students of the MTU CCAD Art Textile programme, bringing together works that explore personal, political, and social themes through stitch, material practice, and constructed form. The exhibition reflects the dedication, creative ambition, and diverse perspectives of the exhibiting artists.

Drop in to GOMA Waterford for a fascinating audio-descriptive tour of ‘where oxlips and the nodding violet grows’, a solo exhibition by Joseph Heffernan, led by the show’s curator Aideen Quirke.

Taking place as part of the 2026 Bealtaine Festival, the tour offers rich verbal descriptions of the works, making art accessible to visitors who are blind or have low vision, while exploring the artistic and thematic significance of Heffernan’s symbol-rich practice.

All welcome | Free admission | No booking necessary

University College Cork Museum Studies Students and Cork Public Museum are proud to present ‘Life, Death, Legacy: Ireland’s Connected Bronze Age’. This exciting, student-curated exhibit explores the dynamic world of the Irish Bronze Age and shows how people from the past were not so different from us now.
‘Life, Death, Legacy’ offer visitors a thought-provoking experience using ancient artefacts from the Munster region. Themes such as feasting, death, luxury and metalworking are shown using burial urns, jewelry, and weapons, making it an unmissable exhibition. The exhibition opens on May 29th and is free for all visitors.

This the first edition of ‘STAC Talks’ is part of the public programme around STAC’s ‘STAC at 30’ exhibition, looking at the question ‘What is an Arts Centre anyway?’ and ‘Making art in a regional context’. The title is a provocation of sorts and a loose umbrella under which to discuss the variety of ways artistic practice is supported, produced, and disseminated in rural/de-centred locations.

11am – ‘What is an Arts Centre anyway?’
2pm – ‘Making art in a regional context – an artist’s perspective’

Both talks are free, but booking is essential (available via our website).
One ticket includes admission to both talks.

For more information and to book, click here.

Exhibition continues from 16/05/2026.

Hina Khan’s Red Storm, a new exhibition at SIRIUS, opens Saturday, 16 May, at 2pm, with a conversation between the artist and me. Hina is a Pakistani Irish artist based in County Cork, and this exhibition is the most extensive presentation of her output to date.
Hina’s practice encompasses painting and drawing, ranging from miniatures informed by the traditional visual language of the Indian subcontinent to large-scale scrolls influenced by contemporary Western expressionist movements. She demonstrates a sustained engagement with history and memory, as well as an emphasis on emotion and spirituality, through symbolism and
experimentation.

Drop in to GOMA Waterford for a fascinating audio-descriptive tour of ‘where oxlips and the nodding violet grows’, a solo exhibition by Joseph Heffernan, led by the show’s curator Aideen Quirke.

Taking place as part of the 2026 Bealtaine Festival, the tour offers rich verbal descriptions of the works, making art accessible to visitors who are blind or have low vision, while exploring the artistic and thematic significance of Heffernan’s symbol-rich practice.

All welcome | Free admission | No booking necessary

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with Culturlann Sweeney is delighted to present ‘Into the Wild” a solo exhibition by Kilkee and Limerick-based artist, Gina O’Connor.

Having already held six solo exhibitions, this latest collection marks Gina’s second exhibition at the Kilkee venue. “Into the Wild” reflects a newfound confidence in her use of paint and colour. Combining her love of movement with her painting, Gina immerses herself deeply in the physicality of the creative process. Her bold and spontaneous approach to mark-making has led to her most exciting work to date.

Clare Arts Office, in conjunction with Clare Museum, is delighted to present This Native Land of Mine, an art exhibition by Frances Bailey celebrating a lifetime of memories rooted in County Clare.

This Native Land of Mine offers a heartfelt celebration of County Clare, seen through the eyes of one of its most dedicated daughters. The exhibition highlights nearly 50 years of creative contribution and invites visitors to immerse themselves in the places and memories that have inspired Frances throughout her life.

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with the Edna O’Brien Library in Scariff is delighted to present “Blue Bird Alphabet” by the Artist Jakobus Smit.

This exhibition brings awareness to bird species of the Atlantic Archipelago. Featuring over sized letters and limited colour palette of blue and grey to create a new lens through which to rediscover their unique characters. Smit studied Design and Visual Communication and has worked in the design industry producing commercial artwork for 30 years. Throughout this time, fine arts practice has remained central to his life, working primarily with oil on canvas and mixed-medium printmaking.

The Glen Tavern in partnership with F.L.P. (Fun Limerick Productions) present Seomra Comhrá (Conversation Room), combining the convivial setting of the traditional Irish Public House and the imagination of artists. Melanie O’Rourke, will be the 2nd artist to exhibit, showing a selection of small works spanning the past 20 years. O’Rourke’s practice is rooted in close observation of everyday life, drawing attention to objects and scenes that often go unnoticed. Reflective surfaces and shifting textures draw the viewer in, while an underlying tension between light and dark, nostalgia and unease, gives the work a lingering sense of ambiguity.

At Lavit Gallery, fXILE unfolds across two vaults. In one, a long-form film commissioned by Sirius Arts Centre, an essay in image and sound built from the excavation of place as memory. In the second vault, a suspended ladder is activated by a feedback system, sending tremors through its body that sound the vault. Architecture here is a resonant structure, held under tension. Visitors move between film and mechanism, image and matter.

fXILE Exhibition Opening and Conversation with Artem Trofimenko and Max Le Cain on 9/05 at 12 Midday.

This the first edition of ‘STAC Talks’ is part of the public programme around STAC’s ‘STAC at 30’ exhibition, looking at the question ‘What is an Arts Centre anyway?’ and ‘Making art in a regional context’. The title is a provocation of sorts and a loose umbrella under which to discuss the variety of ways artistic practice is supported, produced, and disseminated in rural/de-centred locations.

11am – ‘What is an Arts Centre anyway?’
2pm – ‘Making art in a regional context – an artist’s perspective’

Both talks are free, but booking is essential (available via our website).
One ticket includes admission to both talks.

For more information and to book, click here.

Vestiges brings together 2 practices that ask how we live with what remains—traces of place, labour, & memory,& the ongoing work of belonging. Through sculpture, text, performance & printmaking, the exhibition reflects on infrastructures, both physical and psychological, that shape identity & connection within a continually shifting landscape.

O’Shea presents a deconstructed modular home examining housing precarity, instability, and creative labour. Galvin’s Flow draws on walks along the River Dodder, using expanded printmaking and community engagement to map environmental change, memory, and belonging.

‘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.

Flowers & Sound is an exhibition which brings together, for the first time, Katherine Boucher Beug’s large-scale works, revealing the fascinating weave between abstraction and representation. Her deep study of colour and drawing underpins this fluid movement between genres. Smaller works on paper, including written pieces, offer insight into her process.

Paperwork is a solo exhibition by Tom Doig at Studio 12, Backwater Artists Group, Cork, running 1 May – 5 June 2026. Developed through a residency and curatorial collaboration with Benjamin Stafford, the exhibition explores collage and found paper imagery as a way of rethinking how knowledge is organised and understood.

‘where oxlips and the nodding violet grows’ | Joseph Heffernan
Official opening: Sat 9 May 2026, 4–6pm
Exhibition runs: 9 May–6 June 2026, GOMA Waterford
Joseph Heffernan is a Cork-based Irish artist working across painting, drawing, text and assemblage. His practice explores identity, memory and ritual, using found and reclaimed materials to examine how objects carry meaning. This exhibition imagines a speculative world governed by ‘The Ceremony of the Flowers’ – an enigmatic synthesis of poetry, mathematics and esoteric knowledge.
Curated by Aideen Quirke. Free admission. Tues–Sat, 11am–5pm.

Talking Threads is a contemporary textile exhibition by mature students of the MTU CCAD Art Textile programme, bringing together works that explore personal, political, and social themes through stitch, material practice, and constructed form. The exhibition reflects the dedication, creative ambition, and diverse perspectives of the exhibiting artists.

‘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.

This exhibition presents a selection of both historic and newly acquired abstract artworks from the permanent Waterford Art Collection. Alongside artworks can also be found archival information, newspaper cuttings, and descriptions from the artists themselves, as well as critique by a cross-section of individuals invited and interested in demystifying this still often divisive visual language.

Artworks on show by: Arthur Armstrong, Shelia Naughton, Colin Middleton, Aidan Dunne, Phoebe Donovan, Julie Cusack, Anne Yeats, Susan Connolly, Ciara Rodgers, Jonathan Wade, Susan Montgomery, Darragh Lyons, Evie Hone, John McHarg and more…

Waterford Gallery of Art is delighted to present ‘as below, so above’, a solo exhibition of new and recent paintings by Robert Jackson.

This exhibition brings together a selection of Jackson’s many and distinct series of works developed over the last 15 years including miniature portraiture and skyscapes (Tiny Skies), fragmented dream infused landscapes (Interruption Paintings), meticulous lace fabric studies (Secret and Solitary Vice), and an incredibly ambitious new large scale work developed specifically for the exhibition, ‘Your soul is a chosen landscape’.

Vestiges brings together 2 practices that ask how we live with what remains—traces of place, labour, & memory,& the ongoing work of belonging. Through sculpture, text, performance & printmaking, the exhibition reflects on infrastructures, both physical and psychological, that shape identity & connection within a continually shifting landscape.

O’Shea presents a deconstructed modular home examining housing precarity, instability, and creative labour. Galvin’s Flow draws on walks along the River Dodder, using expanded printmaking and community engagement to map environmental change, memory, and belonging.

Exhibition continues from 18/04/2026.

Penti Menti, Sarah Dwyer’s solo exhibition, marking a return for the artist to her native Ireland.

The exhibition at LCGA is the third and final iteration of the exhibition as part of its national tour. Born in Cork and now based in London, Dwyer has a significant international profile. Penti Menti brings together new paintings, drawings and ceramic sculpture created specifically for this exhibition, many of them being the largest in the artist’s career to date.

Opening reception – Friday 17th April, 6 – 8pm.
This exhibition will be opened by artist Alice Maher, and accompanied by a newly commissioned essay by Catherine Marshal, curator and art historian.

April 2026 marks the 30th anniversary of the opening of STAC. This group exhibition ‘STAC at 30’ will showcase contemporary work from our national collections, including Alice Maher, Aideen Barry, John Burke, Patricia Hurl, Austin McQuinn, Ursula Burke, Sheenagh Geoghegan and Bridget O’Gorman. ‘STAC at 30’ is the first exhibition of a yearlong programme that focuses on the wonderful artists and work that continues to come out of the region.

Ormston House presents ‘Memory of a Free Festival’. The exhibition will run from 18 April until 20 June 2026.

Memory of a Free Festival is a touring exhibition and events programme taking place between March 2026 to March 2027. Conceived by Ormston House, the project responds to the Carnsore Point anti-nuclear festivals that took place in Wexford between 1978 and 1981. Featuring works by Orla Barry, Brian Duggan, Alanna O’Kelly, and Cóilín O’Connell.

Further information available here: https://ormstonhouse.com/programme/memory-of-a-free-festival/

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with Culturlann Sweeney is delighted to present ‘Into the Wild” a solo exhibition by Kilkee and Limerick-based artist, Gina O’Connor.

Having already held six solo exhibitions, this latest collection marks Gina’s second exhibition at the Kilkee venue. “Into the Wild” reflects a newfound confidence in her use of paint and colour. Combining her love of movement with her painting, Gina immerses herself deeply in the physicality of the creative process. Her bold and spontaneous approach to mark-making has led to her most exciting work to date.

Clare Arts Office in conjunction with the Edna O’Brien Library in Scariff is delighted to present “Blue Bird Alphabet” by the Artist Jakobus Smit.

This exhibition brings awareness to bird species of the Atlantic Archipelago. Featuring over sized letters and limited colour palette of blue and grey to create a new lens through which to rediscover their unique characters. Smit studied Design and Visual Communication and has worked in the design industry producing commercial artwork for 30 years. Throughout this time, fine arts practice has remained central to his life, working primarily with oil on canvas and mixed-medium printmaking.

Clare Arts Office, in conjunction with Clare Museum, is delighted to present This Native Land of Mine, an art exhibition by Frances Bailey celebrating a lifetime of memories rooted in County Clare.

This Native Land of Mine offers a heartfelt celebration of County Clare, seen through the eyes of one of its most dedicated daughters. The exhibition highlights nearly 50 years of creative contribution and invites visitors to immerse themselves in the places and memories that have inspired Frances throughout her life.

Territories is a contemporary drawing exhibition by Niamh Clarke exploring memory, landscape, and environmental change. Through drawing, text, watercolour, and Super 8 film, Clarke examines what is submerged, eroded, or half-seen, where meaning emerges slowly through gesture and material. The exhibition invites reflection on trace, time, and the layered relationship between personal narrative and landscape. Territories builds on Clarke’s 2025 solo exhibition Interiorities, reconfigured here within a new spatial and conceptual context at CHG&S.

Featuring in The Courthouse gallery & studios’ red couch gallery upstairs.

Paperwork is a solo exhibition by Tom Doig at Studio 12, Backwater Artists Group, Cork, running 1 May – 5 June 2026. Developed through a residency and curatorial collaboration with Benjamin Stafford, the exhibition explores collage and found paper imagery as a way of rethinking how knowledge is organised and understood.

Over the last three years, Chris Finnegan has been developing his visual art studio practice alongside his practice working collaboratively with young people in Cork.

His residency in Triskel Sample Project Space will be composed of collaborative workshops and studio production. Groups of young people (ranging from early years children through to 8-12 year-olds) will be invited into the space for workshops where they will play with materials, objects and the space to create sculpture and other interventions. Chris will develop the imagery and objects produced in them for public exhibition.

The Glen Tavern in partnership with F.L.P. (Fun Limerick Productions) present Seomra Comhrá (Conversation Room), combining the convivial setting of the traditional Irish Public House and the imagination of artists. Melanie O’Rourke, will be the 2nd artist to exhibit, showing a selection of small works spanning the past 20 years. O’Rourke’s practice is rooted in close observation of everyday life, drawing attention to objects and scenes that often go unnoticed. Reflective surfaces and shifting textures draw the viewer in, while an underlying tension between light and dark, nostalgia and unease, gives the work a lingering sense of ambiguity.

At Lavit Gallery, fXILE unfolds across two vaults. In one, a long-form film commissioned by Sirius Arts Centre, an essay in image and sound built from the excavation of place as memory. In the second vault, a suspended ladder is activated by a feedback system, sending tremors through its body that sound the vault. Architecture here is a resonant structure, held under tension. Visitors move between film and mechanism, image and matter.

fXILE Exhibition Opening and Conversation with Artem Trofimenko and Max Le Cain on 9/05 at 12 Midday.

‘where oxlips and the nodding violet grows’ | Joseph Heffernan
Official opening: Sat 9 May 2026, 4–6pm
Exhibition runs: 9 May–6 June 2026, GOMA Waterford
Joseph Heffernan is a Cork-based Irish artist working across painting, drawing, text and assemblage. His practice explores identity, memory and ritual, using found and reclaimed materials to examine how objects carry meaning. This exhibition imagines a speculative world governed by ‘The Ceremony of the Flowers’ – an enigmatic synthesis of poetry, mathematics and esoteric knowledge.
Curated by Aideen Quirke. Free admission. Tues–Sat, 11am–5pm.

Exhibition continues from 14/05/2026.

This exhibition explores poetic and symbolic connections between the human and non-human world. Working primarily through print-based practices, photography, and expanded media, both artists reflect themes of eco-consciousness, ritual, and psychological transformation within an environmentally precarious world. Nature is a metaphorical and philosophical anchor in both artists’ practice. The exhibition aims to consider how ancient knowledge, embodied awareness, and material practice can act as a form of resistance, healing, and renewal.

Exhibition continues from 16/05/2026.

Hina Khan’s Red Storm, a new exhibition at SIRIUS, opens Saturday, 16 May, at 2pm, with a conversation between the artist and me. Hina is a Pakistani Irish artist based in County Cork, and this exhibition is the most extensive presentation of her output to date.
Hina’s practice encompasses painting and drawing, ranging from miniatures informed by the traditional visual language of the Indian subcontinent to large-scale scrolls influenced by contemporary Western expressionist movements. She demonstrates a sustained engagement with history and memory, as well as an emphasis on emotion and spirituality, through symbolism and
experimentation.

Rooted in the local context of Clare as the ‘Banner County’, banners, flags, and textile works also have wider associations. They connect the local and the global, the historical and the contemporary. The exhibition features loans from the Arts Council Collection, Clare Museum, Galway City Museum, and works by artists Áine Phillips & the Dún Emer Eastside Collective, Asbestos, Christina Bennett, Louis le Brocquy, Michelle Malone, Seamus Nolan, and Rachel Fallon.
Curated by Aoife Byrne.
Launching Friday 22nd May at 7pm, All Welcome.

Lavit Gallery presents a two-person exhibition by painters Ita Freeney and Cathy Dorman. Their respective sources are landscapes and interiors, while for both, the work lies between abstraction and representation. Although no humans appear in the paintings, their presence is implied. Both artists go through a very considered process of experiencing, observing and investigating light and shape, and distil, emphasise and manipulate these elements in their paintings.

Continues from 21st May 2026 to 13th June 2026

“All These Are But Dreams and Shadows” is a collaborative show put together by Kat Kelly and Éanna Heavey which brings their practices into constellation, working across video, sound, text, mark making, collage/assemblage, and installation, to explore journeys through the unconscious, the archetypal, the queer, and the elemental.

Éanna Heavey is a West Cork-based multidisciplinary artist currently pursuing an MA in Art, Psyche, and the Creative Imagination at TUS Limerick.

Kat Kelly is a graduate of Limerick College of Art and Design (TUS), working in collage/assemblage, mark making, print media, text and installation.

Flowers & Sound is an exhibition which brings together, for the first time, Katherine Boucher Beug’s large-scale works, revealing the fascinating weave between abstraction and representation. Her deep study of colour and drawing underpins this fluid movement between genres. Smaller works on paper, including written pieces, offer insight into her process.