What’s on in Connaught

Catriona Coogan is a contemporary Irish artist based in Oughterard, Co. Galway. Working primarily in gouache, watercolour, ink and fine pen, she creates highly detailed works inspired by Irish wildlife, landscape, folklore and mythology. Her work moves between realism and symbolism, exploring the connections between nature, human experience and the stories held within the Irish landscape.

Design Mingle: Creative Connections, Friday September 4th – Our Design Mingle series are free events that bring together creatives and businesses for informal networking and conversations around creativity, design and business. At this session, award-winning creative director and sonic branding specialist Keith Lawler will share insights from his international career and explore how sound can help brands connect with audiences. We’d love to welcome you along, and a light lunch/coffee will be provided.

To register, click here.

Solas Art Gallery is delighted to present its Summer Group Exhibition at the Island Theatre, Ballinamore. This selected exhibition welcomes submissions from both members and non-members, showcasing an exciting collection of contemporary visual artworks. Featuring an inspiring mix of established exhibitors, returning favourites and talented new artists, this year’s exhibition promises to be one of the most diverse and captivating to date. From striking paintings and intricate textiles to sculpture, photography, collage and mixed media artworks, every submission offers its own unique story and creative perspective.

Opening night: 24th of July at 7:30pm.

Design Mingle: Creative Connections, Friday September 4th – Our Design Mingle series are free events that bring together creatives and businesses for informal networking and conversations around creativity, design and business. At this session, award-winning creative director and sonic branding specialist Keith Lawler will share insights from his international career and explore how sound can help brands connect with audiences. We’d love to welcome you along, and a light lunch/coffee will be provided.

To register, click here.

Catriona Coogan is a contemporary Irish artist based in Oughterard, Co. Galway. Working primarily in gouache, watercolour, ink and fine pen, she creates highly detailed works inspired by Irish wildlife, landscape, folklore and mythology. Her work moves between realism and symbolism, exploring the connections between nature, human experience and the stories held within the Irish landscape.

Exhibition continues from 13/08/26.

The Weight of Air is a new site-specific exhibition by Sorcha McNamara. The exhibition reflects the artist’s material-led practice and dwells on the concept of the frame. The works in question explore how something is held, regarded and positioned in space, both literally and figuratively. Much of the work in the exhibition was developed during her time spent on residency in Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin (2025-26).

Currently based in Mayo, Sorcha holds an MA in Art & Research Collaboration from IADT Dún Laoghaire (2024) and a BA in Painting from Limerick School of Art & Design (2019).

Exhibition continues from 15/11/25 until 27/09/26.

Jack Butler Yeats (1871–1957) is one of Ireland’s most celebrated twentieth-century artists. The Niland Collection, housed at The Model, holds an extensive body of his work spanning the full arc of his career – from early pen-and-ink illustrations and lively watercolours, to the expressive oil paintings that define his mature style.

Working across sculpture and installation, Rainey’s practice explores themes of transformation, reconstruction and material memory, drawing on references from classical statuary, mythology and archaeology. ‘Deviations’ brings together a new body of work that considers how objects, histories and narratives are continually reshaped through time.

Solas Art Gallery is delighted to present its Summer Group Exhibition at the Island Theatre, Ballinamore. This selected exhibition welcomes submissions from both members and non-members, showcasing an exciting collection of contemporary visual artworks. Featuring an inspiring mix of established exhibitors, returning favourites and talented new artists, this year’s exhibition promises to be one of the most diverse and captivating to date. From striking paintings and intricate textiles to sculpture, photography, collage and mixed media artworks, every submission offers its own unique story and creative perspective.

Opening night: 24th of July at 7:30pm.

In the Pale Light of a Shadow is an installation that explores how we perceive and relate to the world, particularly nature. The installation is made up of a number of visually spare, interconnected works.

Drawing on local ecology in Ballina along with a number of philosophical and art-historical references, the exhibition questions binaries between nature and culture. Through a range of imagery, subtle gestures and interventions, the works offer oblique reflections on nature, materiality, time, and the human shadows cast on land.

The exhibition title, “Quarters”, refers to the fact that most of the studies for these paintings were executed on the banks of the Moy across the four seasons. In the process, remembrance and riverscape merged with the tactile process of sketching and painting. Memory combined past and present. Ambient sounds of wind and rain, and sensations of heat and cold became elements of the work.

In the studio, the creative evolution of the paintings was an intuitive fusion of recollections, feelings, and physical and visual impressions, all stretching across my experiences at the riverbank. This work resulted in six paintings directly related to the

Exhibition continues from 13/08/26.

The Weight of Air is a new site-specific exhibition by Sorcha McNamara. The exhibition reflects the artist’s material-led practice and dwells on the concept of the frame. The works in question explore how something is held, regarded and positioned in space, both literally and figuratively. Much of the work in the exhibition was developed during her time spent on residency in Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin (2025-26).

Currently based in Mayo, Sorcha holds an MA in Art & Research Collaboration from IADT Dún Laoghaire (2024) and a BA in Painting from Limerick School of Art & Design (2019).

Meet the Artists event Saturday the 29th of August, 2pm.

C.A.K.E. Collective brings together 12 emerging artists united by a shared commitment to Creativity, Art, Knowledge, and Expression.

For Westward, the artists respond to the idea of the west as both place and metaphor. Through painting and mixed media, they explore themes of landscape, memory, migration, belonging and resilience. Each artist brings their own experiences, perspectives and ways of making to a collective conversation.

Together, they present the west not as a fixed destination, but as a shared orientation — personal, evolving and open to interpretation.

Earthly Basin of Attraction is a solo exhibition by Irish artist Rebecca Jobson commissioned for Sligo’s Tread Softly Festival. She explores the geographical and metaphysical layers of County Sligo’s 6,000-year-old passage tomb landscape through painting, print, textile, and installation. Jobson frames this ancient region as a literal and spiritual basin that draws in and cradles life. Her work capturing themes of deep time, lore and life rooted in the land for millennia. An internationally exhibiting artist, her work is held in public and private collections in Europe and the USA.