What’s on in Connaught

Outset Gallery is delighted to announce the return of the Outset Xmas Open for its fifth edition, opening on Friday November 6th.

Following our largest edition to date in 2025; featuring 150+ works by 130+ artists, selected from more than 950 individual artworks, we’re making the fifth edition our most ambitious yet. We’re developing an expanded opening night, Friday 6th November, to bring artists, audiences and collectors together to celebrate the launch of OXO 2026.

OXO will run until Sunday 24th January 2027.

Outset Gallery is delighted to present the 2026 edition of the Outset Xmas Open, Ireland’s largest Christmas art exhibition. OXO 2025 featured 170 works from over 150 artists representing a diverse range of artists across multiple disciplines. All works are available to purchase and this is the perfect opportunity for collectors or enthusiasts to secure a unique, one of kind art piece.

The launch event will run from 18.00-21.00 with complementary refreshments for guests and music from DJ collective Brothers In Arms.

Tickets are free, but registration is essential. We hope to see you there!

For more information and to register, click here.

Sunsetters addresses issues of old age through a series of paintings, that reflect the loneliness and isolation of retirement. Something which will affect most of us as we are living longer. Yet advertising aims at youth, leaving elderly people feel more sidelined and overlooked.
The paintings are a series of vignettes portraying retired people on holiday; lost in thought, looking back at their lives and wondering what’s ahead as Thier sun sets.

Outset Gallery is excited to announce our third Private Preview for collectors, sponsors, and art enthusiasts to explore the exhibition early.

OXO will act as Ireland’s largest Open Call Christmas exhibition, offering collectors a unique chance to acquire works from both emerging and established artists.

Join us for a relaxed preview and opportunity to discuss artworks with gallery staff while enjoying a glass of wine and small bites from Magpie Bakery.

Join us on Thursday, November 5th from 6 to 8pm.

Looking forward to seeing you all there.

For more information and to register, click here.

Anthony D Kelly in collaboration with the University of Galway Art Gallery and Project RARE, is excited to announce the launch of an upcoming exhibition of ‘The Lexicon of Wonder’ project. Opening on Thursday the 8th of October at 6pm and running until Friday the 6th of November.

This project featuring an exhibition, workshops, discussions and an artist talk is inspired by recent research into the emotions of Wonder & Awe and into the arts as a deep technology for evoking these states in both practitioner and audience.

Come join us to encounter artworks which instill a viewer with a sense of wonder and boundless curiosity.

Outset Gallery is delighted to present the 2026 edition of the Outset Xmas Open, Ireland’s largest Christmas art exhibition. OXO 2025 featured 170 works from over 150 artists representing a diverse range of artists across multiple disciplines. All works are available to purchase and this is the perfect opportunity for collectors or enthusiasts to secure a unique, one of kind art piece.

The launch event will run from 18.00-21.00 with complementary refreshments for guests and music from DJ collective Brothers In Arms.

Tickets are free, but registration is essential. We hope to see you there!

For more information and to register, click here.

Exhibition continues from 09/09/26 to 09/11/26.

This is an exhibition of new works by artists Hilary Morley and Clodagh Wade, brings together a collection of their new and carefully selected works in watercolour, mixed media and collage. While distinct in style and materials, their works are united by complementary colour palettes and a meticulous attention to detail. Both artists share a deep appreciation for the natural world. Clodagh explores the wonder of the sea and coastline areas of Galway, while Hilary is drawn to the endangered rural landscape of the western city suburbs. This exhibition represents on the artists’ individual and collaborative ‘Points of Viewing’.

Exhibition runs 12/10/26-12/11/26.

As Anáil – Derval Dunford, www.sui.ie
Opening by Ollie Jennings, Manager of The Saw Doctors, co-founder of Macnas, & Galway Arts Fest
Town Hall Theatre, Westport 5.30pm 29th of Oct

Breath-based interactive audio-visual bilingual exhibition dedicated to Derval’s late brother John who recorded and co-produced the Waterboys Fishermans Blues album & masterminded Sharon Shannon’s career.
Derval’s process of breath nature & ink became a channel for grief, John was her 3rd brother to die from lung cancer.
Inspired by John Moriarty & Manchán Magan, this fusion of guided breath practices, Irish titles & ink images is a unique interoceptive experience

Opening event Friday 16th October, 7:30pm.

Solas Art Gallery in Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, is delighted to announce two new solo exhibitions featuring artists Sharon Dollar and Michael J Lane, which will run from 16th October until 13th November 2026. The exhibition brings together two distinct artistic practices, united by a deep connection to the beauty of the natural world, the Irish landscape and the enduring relationship between people, place and landscape.

Exhibition runs 18/09/26-15/11/26.

Desire Lines is aemi’s 2026 touring programme, an annual selection of artist and experimental film that brings together a range of voices from Irish and international contemporary practice.

Featuring films by Chloe Brenan, Collectif Faire Part, Eóin Heaney, Olivia Normile and Basma al-Sharif, ‘Desire Lines’ premiered at the Irish Film Institute in January and has since screened in Belfast and Galway with further dates also confirmed to take place later in 2026 in Wicklow, Louth and Offaly.

Exhibition runs 18/09/26-15/11/26.

Desire Lines is aemi’s 2026 touring programme, an annual selection of artist and experimental film that brings together a range of voices from Irish and international contemporary practice.

Featuring films by Chloe Brenan, Collectif Faire Part, Eóin Heaney, Olivia Normile and Basma al-Sharif, ‘Desire Lines’ premiered at the Irish Film Institute in January and has since screened in Belfast and Galway with further dates also confirmed to take place later in 2026 in Wicklow, Louth and Offaly.

Exhibition runs 13/09/26-17/01/26.

Cathy Wilkes grew up in a working-class area of East Belfast and moved to Glasgow aged 19, in 1985. After returning to Ireland for four years, she has lived in Scotland since 1994. Her art and writing are introspective, and sometimes at the edge of legibility. At the same time, out of Wilkes’ non-dualist world emerge figures and objects which are potently direct and seditious. The exhibition includes three Untitled installations from 2026, 2024 and 2019 together with paintings and sculpture from the same period. Cathy Wilkes represented Britain at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019 and Scotland at the 51st Venice Biennial in 2005.

Anthony D Kelly in collaboration with the University of Galway Art Gallery and Project RARE, is excited to announce the launch of an upcoming exhibition of ‘The Lexicon of Wonder’ project. Opening on Thursday the 8th of October at 6pm and running until Friday the 6th of November.

This project featuring an exhibition, workshops, discussions and an artist talk is inspired by recent research into the emotions of Wonder & Awe and into the arts as a deep technology for evoking these states in both practitioner and audience.

Come join us to encounter artworks which instill a viewer with a sense of wonder and boundless curiosity.

Opening event Friday 16th October, 7:30pm.

Solas Art Gallery in Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, is delighted to announce two new solo exhibitions featuring artists Sharon Dollar and Michael J Lane, which will run from 16th October until 13th November 2026. The exhibition brings together two distinct artistic practices, united by a deep connection to the beauty of the natural world, the Irish landscape and the enduring relationship between people, place and landscape.

Blawnin Clancy’s The Dark Seam considers the landscape as a repository of personal and collective histories, where traces of past lives remain embedded in the land. Informed by her own family history of migration between Ireland and North America, the paintings explore inheritance, departure and return, with the sea becoming a line through history. Archetypal figures evoke lives lived and knowledge carried between generations, connecting people to land and place. Like a geological seam running beneath the surface, the work traces what is carried forward, what is left behind and what continues to surface in the present.

Exhibition runs 12/10/26-12/11/26.

As Anáil – Derval Dunford, www.sui.ie
Opening by Ollie Jennings, Manager of The Saw Doctors, co-founder of Macnas, & Galway Arts Fest
Town Hall Theatre, Westport 5.30pm 29th of Oct

Breath-based interactive audio-visual bilingual exhibition dedicated to Derval’s late brother John who recorded and co-produced the Waterboys Fishermans Blues album & masterminded Sharon Shannon’s career.
Derval’s process of breath nature & ink became a channel for grief, John was her 3rd brother to die from lung cancer.
Inspired by John Moriarty & Manchán Magan, this fusion of guided breath practices, Irish titles & ink images is a unique interoceptive experience

Exhibition continues from 09/09/26 to 09/11/26.

This is an exhibition of new works by artists Hilary Morley and Clodagh Wade, brings together a collection of their new and carefully selected works in watercolour, mixed media and collage. While distinct in style and materials, their works are united by complementary colour palettes and a meticulous attention to detail. Both artists share a deep appreciation for the natural world. Clodagh explores the wonder of the sea and coastline areas of Galway, while Hilary is drawn to the endangered rural landscape of the western city suburbs. This exhibition represents on the artists’ individual and collaborative ‘Points of Viewing’.

Custom House Studios + Gallery, Westport, presents About Time, exhibition by Na Cailleacha, a collective of women artists aged 70 and over.
Centered on ageing, visibility and the politics of time, the exhibition challenges cultural perceptions of older women and asserts their continued relevance, creativity and agency within contemporary art.
Bringing together earlier and new work, including School of Hibernia (after Raphael) (2024), the exhibition features artists’ books, film, video and multimedia installation, alongside a new composition by Carole Nelson.

Cygnus Cygnus presents a new body of work by Cork-based artist Lara Quinn. Moving between figurative painting and abstraction, Quinn returns to the first impulse to draw or paint, setting the personal beginnings of image-making in childhood alongside the historical beginnings of self-portraiture. Through her own self-portrait, she considers what it means to inherit and continue a history of image-making, between memory, lived experience and imagination. The exhibition is part of an artist exchange between Engage and Sample-Studios, Cork.

Outset Gallery is excited to announce our third Private Preview for collectors, sponsors, and art enthusiasts to explore the exhibition early.

OXO will act as Ireland’s largest Open Call Christmas exhibition, offering collectors a unique chance to acquire works from both emerging and established artists.

Join us for a relaxed preview and opportunity to discuss artworks with gallery staff while enjoying a glass of wine and small bites from Magpie Bakery.

Join us on Thursday, November 5th from 6 to 8pm.

Looking forward to seeing you all there.

For more information and to register, click here.