Exhibitions across 2 locations:
Kunstkammer
Aurél, Monster Chetwynd, Dorothy Cross, Urs Fischer, Marie Foley, John Gerrard, Graham Gingles, John Kindness, Sarah Lucas, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Alice Maher, Ed Miliano, Patrick O’Reilly, Edward Rollitt, Sasha Sykes, Joseph Walsh
Curated by Robert O’Byrne 22 March26 October 2025
March – April 2025
Michael Wann, Controlled Explosion, 2024 [detail], charcoal on wood panel, 30 x 30 cm; image courtesy of the artist and Solomon Fine Art.
First Pages
6. Roundup. Exhibitions and events from the past two months.
9. Home Birds. Cornelius Browne delivers an ode to life and love. Geography Is Important. Miguel Amado reflects on the practice of KCAT Arts Centre artist Fergus FitzGerald.
10. Vote of Confidence. Day Magee discusses their experience of the Basic Income Pilot Programme due to end this year. Reconnecting With Your Why. Aoibheann Greenan offers guidelines for artists to uncover the deeper motivations of their creative practice.
11. POP ART: A Cautionary Note. From the VAI archives, an essay by John Bowyer Bell from 1981, focusing on hazardous art materials.
Dry Run. Lian Bell speaks with members of the exhibition club Dirty Solutions about their test event at TBG+S last October.
12. Preserving Artistic Legacy. Clare Lymer outlines NIVAL’s recent acquisition of the Belfast International Festival of Performance Art Archive.
Residency
13. The Radical Art of Living. Lisa Fingleton reflects on a monthlong residency at Navdanya Biodiversity and Conservation Farm in Northern India..
In Focus: MAVIS/ARC
14. Two Decades of MAVIS/ARC. Barry McHugh invites reflections from the MAVIS/ARC alumni and associates on the impact and legacy of the MA programme.
Critique
19. Nigel Rolfe, Into the Mire, 2012, video.
20. ‘BogSkin’ at the RHA
21. Brian Maguire at the Hugh Lane Gallery
22. ‘Bodies’ at Waterford Gallery of Art
24. Michael Wann at Solomon Fine Art
Regional Report
25. Oneiric. Clara McSweeny outlines the current exhibition at An Táin Arts Centre and the wider visual art infrastructure in Dundalk.
Exhibition Profile
26. Irish Art Now. Orla Jackson and Joe Duggan discuss a recent exhibition at the Embassy of Ireland in London.
Book Review
28. Poor Artists. Sarah Long reviews a book by The White Pube.
Seminar Report
29. Artworld Reputation in the Digital Age. Rachel O’Dwyer reports on a recent conference at TBG+S.
Member Profile
30. Material Acts. Kathryn Maguire outlines recent developments in her practice.
32. All That’s Left of You in Me. Cristín Leach considers the current work of artist Louise Cherry.
Public Art
33. The Presence of Absence. Laurence O’Toole outlines his public artwork commissioned by Richmond Homes for Sandyford Industrial Estate.
Last Pages
34. VAI Lifelong Learning. Upcoming VAI Helpdesks, cafés, and webinars.
35. VAN Stockists. Regional distribution points for The VAN.
The Visual Artists’ News Sheet:
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24 FEBRUARY – 10 MAY
Mermaid Arts Centre, Main Street, Bray, Co. Wicklow A98 N5P1 www.mermaidartscentre.ie
27 March – 28 September 2025
Dublin Castle
‘All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun’ is an ambitious group exhibition that delves into the nuanced interplay of dualities shaping both art and life. Curated by artists Paul Hallahan and Lee Welch, the show draws inspiration from the layered contrasts found in the works of Flann O’Brien – rural versus urban, reality versus imagination, and seriousness versus humour. The exhibition brings together a top line-up of Irish and international artists. On display in The Coach House at Dublin Castle until 11 May. dublincastle.ie
The major group exhibition ‘Take a Breath’ provides a historical, social, political and personal examination of breathing – why we breathe, how we breathe, and what we breathe – exploring themes of decolonisation, environmental racism, indigenous language, the impact of war on the environment and breath as meditation. Taking as its starting point the nature of breath and its vital role in our very existence, the exhibition reflects on the social, political, environmental, and spiritual aspect of breathing. The exhibition continues until 17 March.
imma.ie
Arthology Collective launched their publication, WAKE, at NCAD on 14 January. This limited-edition zine is the documentation and celebration of WAKE, an art experience that explored the relationship between stability and artistic production, drawing on sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s thoughts on social and cultural capital, and creativity. Set against the backdrop of Dublin’s escalating housing crisis, WAKE combined lamentation and celebration to prompt deeper discourse around housing policies and their implementation, impacting artists and cultural production. ncad.ie
Douglas Hyde Gallery
The group exhibition ‘Land’ centred on works that engage, unsettle and prompt debate around ideas of land. The exhibition title plays on connected ideas of land, a denoted area of possession, an area or ground that is not water, a country or state, or a place to be landed on or taken. The show ran from 7 November 2024 to 16 February 2025 and included significant works by artists Brook Andrew, Bassam Issa Al-Sabah, Brian Jungen & Duane Linklater, Marianne Keating, Pınar Öğrenci, Jumana Manna, and Kathy Prendergast. thedouglashyde.ie
Irish Architecture Foundation
The IAF hosted Open House Europe, welcoming over 70 representatives from 25 cities in the Open House network. Taking place in the Printworks in Dublin Castle on 30 and 31 January, the summit presented a public programme, exploring how accessibility and inclusion can transform cities into vibrant, welcoming spaces for everyone. The summit’s title, ‘The City Invites’, captured its essence – a call to action and a challenge to imagine cities as places that embrace diversity, celebrate inclusion, and thrive on collective creativity. architecturefoundation.ie
Taylor Galleries
On 14 February, a solo exhibition by Cecily Brennan opened to the public at Taylor Galleries. ‘Cecily Brennan: SIX MEN’ features paintings and drawings from Brennan’s recent project, which centres on six fictional characters, created by the artist: The Battler, Sad Man, Rage, The Voice Hearer, Circadian Man, and The Roller. According to the exhibition press release, these men “have suffered or are suffering psychotic breakdown. Unaware of each other, they are isolated by their illness.” The exhibition continues until 8 March 2025.
taylorgalleries.ie
Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich
The latest solo exhibition by David Dunne, ‘terroir / the knots of becoming’, consists of a series of colour archival prints, developed from an ongoing project in the south of Morocco. Dunne has documented the social, ecological and architectural structures of the Berber / Amazigh Haha tribe in the region of Ait Tamer on the Atlantic coast. This collective community live in the mountain villages and travel daily down to the shoreline, where they work and survive by harvesting mussels at low tide. The exhibition continues until 13 March.
culturlann.ie
Naughton Gallery
‘Call Me Mother’, by Sarah Maple, delved into the artist’s relatively recent experiences of motherhood, centring around a photographic installation. Visualising the 650 times her baby was fed over the course of three months, each photograph includes a hand-finished element, concealing the artist’s face. The exhibition offered a candid exploration of the realities of motherhood, shedding light on its undervalued labour, while challenging societal perceptions of women during and after pregnancy. On display from 9 January to 23 February. naughtongallery.org
University of Atypical
‘Hell or High Water III’ was Vikkie Patterson’s latest exhibition of her painting series begun in 2019. The oil on sackcloth paintings reflect on the upheaval caused by the climate crisis, as well as depicting coloniality in both Northern Ireland and the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe. The paint is applied in raw gestures with impasto and drawn elements. The texture of the support forms an integral part of the painting surface, with Patterson’s characteristic use of dark and light contrasts. On display from 14 January to 21 February.
universityofatypical.org
‘Gordon Harris: Inner Strength’ was a solo exhibition by one of Ireland’s most highly regarded figurative painters. Recognised for his meticulously detailed, richly coloured, and translucently layered paintings, Harris primarily uses the medium of oil paint, finished delicately with gold and silver leaf, which spectacularly captures and changes with light. His latest body of work features portraits of his daughters and symbolises inner strength, innocence and protection. The exhibition ran at Gormleys Belfast from 11 to 31 January. gormleys.ie
QSS welcomed a selection of exceptional graduates to exhibit their work as part of ‘Emergence VIII’. Now in its eighth year, the annual ‘Emergence’ exhibition provides a valuable and professional platform for recent graduates at a transitional stage in their career. Collectively the selected works demonstrate the diverse range of talent and media explored at Belfast School of Art. QSS Studio Member and Graduate Artist 24/25 Bursary winner, Claire Ritchie, also took part in the exhibition. On display from 16 January to 20 February. queenstreetstudios.net
Katherine Penney’s recent exhibition, ‘Misaligned’, was a nod to a once-shared printmaking practice between the artist and her late father, Ulster University design lecturer, Bill Penney. The exhibition addressed the complexity of loss and the practical realities of death, with the press release stating: “Death feels like a disjointed reality that is difficult to reconcile – things simply don’t line up. An emotional disconnect that underscores the paradox of grief: the pain of loss alongside the enduring gift of love. A co-existence of presence and absence.” On display from 21 January to 20 February. ulster.ac.uk
Ards Arts Centre
‘Pursuing the Third Dimension’ by Michael Geddis was on display from 23 January to 15 February. His drawings are characterised by distinctively microscopic features including soft and sharp focus, crisp silhouettes, and a sense of diffuse lighting that appears to be coming from underneath the pictorial plane. Geddis was a recipient of the Ards and North Down Borough Council Individual Artist Grant in 2023/24. This funding enabled him to develop his work into three-dimensional bronze sculpture. andculture.org.uk
Hamilton Gallery
The Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland in The Netherlands, recently presented ‘BLOODROOT’ – an exhibition of 110 paintings by women artists. 1 February marks the beginning of spring and the celebration of Lá Fhéile Bríde, St Brigid’s Day – symbolising hope, renewal and the feminine. Since 2018, Irish Embassies and Consulates across the world have been marking the day by celebrating the creativity of women. ‘BLOODROOT’ featured artworks submitted in response to poems by Annemarie Ní Churreáin. hamiltongallery.ie
‘CIVIC, RADAR, LEVEL, ROTOR’ was an exhibition by The Project Twins – twin brothers, James and Michael Fitzgerald. The Project Twins grew up in Cashel, County Tipperary, and are now based in Cork City. The exhibition title was drawn from a list of palindromes on Wikipedia. Symmetrical by nature, these four words create a collage-like quality, where disparate elements come together to suggest new meanings. On display at STAC from 18 January to 22 February.
southtippartscentre.ie
Esker Arts
Paul Roy’s solo exhibition, ‘Heart Tracing’, runs at Esker Arts in Tullamore until 15 March. The intention of Roy’s visual arts practice has always been that the works are the initiation of a conversation with the audience. Heart tracing is a medical test, looking at the electrical rhythm of the heart. For Roy, as a chronically ill person, the sense of heart, both physically and emotionally, speaks to almost every aspect of life. It represents the core of grief, longing, love, and absence, all intensely felt within –it bears the burdens of illness and loss.
eskerarts.ie
Hypha Studios
Co-curated by Ciarán Mac Domhnaill and Hazel O’Sullivan, the group exhibition, ‘In The Press’, presented the work of 11 multidisciplinary artists who each have a strong connection to the island of Ireland as their place of birth, home or work. The colloquial differences between the kitchen ‘press’ (in Ireland) or the kitchen ‘cupboard’ (in the UK) inspired a curatorial approach that highlighted the rich linguistic heritage of Hiberno English as a bonding mechanism for this collective. On display at Hypha Studios in London, from 11 to 29 January. hyphastudios.com
Triskel Arts Centre
Winter Sun (2024) is a moving image work by Cork artist, Elinor O’Donovan, which preserves a warm Cork summer, saved for the months when it is most needed. Taking as its inspiration the iconic view from the top of Patrick’s Hill at Bells Field, the looping film depicts Corkonians sharing a moment of togetherness, connected by their mutual appreciation for a setting summer sun. Winter Sun is projected onto the Triskel building as part of the city-wide Island City sculpture trail (15 October 2024 to 30 April).
triskelartscentre.ie
FE McWilliam Gallery
‘Hilary Heron: A Retrospective’ celebrated the pioneering work of modernist sculptor Hilary Heron (1923-1977). It was on display at FE McWilliam Gallery from 18 November 2024 to 15 February. A Dublin-born sculptor with family roots in County Armagh, Hilary Heron represented Ireland at the 1956 Venice Biennale, alongside painter Louis le Brocquy (19162012). The exhibition sought to correct the ways that her work has been overlooked in Irish and international histories of modern sculpture. visitarmagh.com
Solas Art Gallery
The Spring Group Exhibition features a diverse selection of artworks that span a variety of mediums and styles. The exhibition celebrates the talent of local artists while fostering a sense of community and shared inspiration among visitors. From vibrant paintings, rendered in oils, acrylics, and watercolours, to intricate sculptures, this dynamic exhibition offers unique glimpses into the creative minds of both emerging and established artists. The exhibition continues until 4 April.
solasart.ie
Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre
‘All at Once Collapsing Together’, by Caoimhín Gaffney, uses fiction to imagine new ways of relating to the natural world. Images throughout the exhibition act as mirrors to the healing and relief the environment can offer, with narratives fraught with climate anxiety interrupting and reframing these as temporary and fragile. The film and texts are without traditional narratives or character arcs, aiming to create an unsettled terrain that reflects the uncomfortable emotions and sensations they discuss. On display from 11 January to 15 February. westcorkartscentre.com
Linenhall Arts Centre
‘Drop’ was a solo exhibition by Brían Crotty which ran from 17 January to 22 February. ‘Drop’ revolved around merging painting and cinema, meticulously exploring the temporal aspects of both mediums. According to the press release, the artist endeavours to present “fresh perspectives, provocations, and empathy through hybrid cinematic artworks.” Accordingly, these works “strive to generate experimental narratives that take viewers on a psychoanalytic journey through the complexities of the Irish experience.”
thelinenhall.com
Solstice Arts Centre
‘Moments of Being’ is a group exhibition exploring the diversity of approaches to painting. The exhibition includes figurative, abstract, experimental, open and expanded painting practices by established, midcareer and emerging artists. Ideas and themes explored include personal narratives, observations of everyday life, the body, identity and place, the natural world, contemporary culture, history, politics, the real and the virtual, and the materiality and essence of painting. On display from 18 January to 15 March.
solsticeartscentre.ie
Void Art Centre
‘FARMWORK’ presented a selection of Deirdre O’Mahony’s artworks made over the past ten years, reflecting on her interest in the politics of landscape, rural sustainability and food security, challenging mainstream narratives around agricultural matters and policy. In this project, three distinct bodies of work expand on questions prompted by the artist’s research into the history of agricultural development and the efforts of one man, John Silke, to build up the seed potato industry in Donegal. The exhibition continues until 8 March. derryvoid.com
Fingal County Council Arts Office in partnership with Ardgillan Castle, are offering a funded studio space to a professional Fingal artist for one year, commencing at the beginning of October 2025.
The award offers an artist the chance to develop their practice in a supportive environment and includes the cost of studio rental and administration.
To be eligible to apply, applicants must: have been born, have studied, or currently reside in the Fingal administrative area.
Closing date for applications is Tuesday 6th May 2025 at 4.00pm
To apply and find out more, visit: www.rhagallery.ie
For further information email: annie@rhagallery.ie
Fingal, A Place for Art
Fingal County Council Arts Office in partnership with the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) School, are offering a funded studio space to a professional Fingal artist for one year, commencing at the end of October 2025.
The award offers an artist the opportunity to develop their practice within the institutional framework of the RHA and covers the cost of studio rental and administration. The award is open to professional practicing artists at all career stages working in visual art. To be eligible to apply, applicants must: have been born, have studied, or currently reside in the Fingal administrative area.
Closing date for applications is Tuesday 6th May 2025 at 4.00pm
To apply and find out more, visit: www.rhagallery.ie
For further information email: annie@rhagallery.ie
RHA+Ardgillan2025_190225.indd 2
21/02/2025 12:55
HIS LATEST PLEIN AIR PAINTING COLUMN, CORNELIUS BROWNE DELIVERS AN ODE TO ART, LIFE AND LOVE.
I PAINT WITHIN sight of our home – my wife, Paula, inside, resting or painting. I leave my easel to peek through a window. We acknowledge one another with tiny waves. Everything is fine. We return to our paintings.
Those carefree rambles that were such a part of my painting life, belong, for the time being, to the past. The months leading up to the thunderclap last May that ripped our lives apart are bathed retrospectively in Edenic light. Paula’s zealous vision of carving a garden from the decades of neglect that had rampant vegetation choking our dwelling, created pockets of beauty to greet the radiance of spring. As pops of colour absorbed the sun, I worked on A Garden a Stone’s Throw from the Sea – perhaps the most joyous painting season of my life. Old feelings grew younger. Was I reliving, through paint, the springtime of our love? Echoes of when she and I were teenagers, more than three decades earlier? Or is this a fanciful sparkle, sparked by coming within minutes of losing Paula forever? Our expulsion from the paradisical garden.
Each garden picture had a sea picture companion. Every painting session among Paula’s flowers led to a walk across the road and wild fields to paint the sea. This toing and froing became part of the artwork; my paintings an ambling dialogue between two places. The openness of the sea, the salty plight of gaunt trees growing near the shoreline, unloved yet enduring, reaching pictorially towards trees planted lovingly by Paula, their summery exuberance gazing upon plants flourishing in the embraces of terracotta pots. 30 paintings travelled to Cashel Arts Festival in September, but I never saw my solo exhibition. By then, I couldn’t leave Paula for a moment.
“The Brain – is wider than the Sky,” wrote Emily Dickinson in 1862. The poet of Amherst dwells in the imagination as a recluse, rarely venturing out of doors. While it is true that for the last two decades of her life, Dickinson didn’t leave the family prop-
erty, she was often observed, during these years of seclusion, on summer evenings tending her flower beds by moonlight in her signature white cotton dress. Among the packets of unpublished poems, uncovered in Dickinson’s room following her death, scores of house flowers and birds. A garden of the mind.
Thunderclap headaches are sudden and unimaginably severe. Paula’s occurred on the last day of the school year, minutes after I’d returned home with our children, set free for the summer. The ambulance was more than an hour away. Our GP’s surgery had closed for the day, but I was out of options. Somehow, I carried Paula to the car, rolled down all the windows, and sped. The doctor and practice nurse were still there. In a cramped examination room, they worked frantically to keep Paula alive for an hour. As evening darkened, a scan confirmed the large bleed on her brain. A quarter of people who experience a brain aneurysm rupture die within 24 hours. Around half die within three months.
Days after her operation, on the first morning she was able to feed herself again, in black biro on a lined notebook page, Paula drew her hospital bowl and spoon. Relief flooded her exhausted body: I can still draw On the upper rim of the bowl, she drew a wren, carried in her head from home. Paula has always been a still life painter, all her days collecting vessels for feathers and flowers. However, since battling an aggressive cancer with low five-year survival rates, the little birds she loves in life have been enlivening her motionless subject matter. They alight on her table, glance at the viewer, perch on vases, fly away. Gardening since childhood, Paula’s spirit has fused with the resilience of songbirds. Navigating life with a damaged cerebellum, my beloved’s brain is still wider than the sky. And with wingbeats and song, it brims, outflying dusk.
Cornelius Browne is an artist based in County Donegal.
MIGUEL AMADO REFLECTS ON THE PRACTICE OF KCAT ARTS CENTRE ARTIST FERGUS FITZGERALD.
FERGUS FITZGERALD IS an artist living in the Carrick-on-Suir facilities of Camphill Communities of Ireland and working at their affiliate, KCAT Arts Centre in Callan. This organisation is known for supporting artists identified as having intellectual disabilities – or, as the critic Aidan Dunne put it in the Irish Times in 2016, “artists from different backgrounds and with different abilities.” Dunne was reviewing a group show at Galway Arts Centre of seven KCAT Arts Centre artists and praised FitzGerald’s “beautifully free-flowing compositions with a playful, theatrical quality ... [which] seamlessly incorporate handwritten text in a way that recalls early Hockney.”
Over the past decade or so, FitzGerald has been creating an extensive body of work with the assistance of KCAT Arts Centre mentors and facilitators – currently, Declan Kennedy and Maurice Caplice. He has been exhibiting regularly within the context of activities proposed by the organisation, including a solo show at Mermaid Arts Centre in 2019.
FitzGerald’s practice is informed by his travels throughout Europe, both real and imaginary – he is an excursionist to lands familiar and foreign. He draws connections between geographies he has visited with his family and those he hopes to explore in the future, melding lived experience with research conducted online and through expansive reading.
FitzGerald is largely concerned with urban scenarios, and mostly paints landmarks – monuments, main streets. He registers, whether directly or through reproductions, the shapes that compose a single structure’s facade or a whole stretch of a skyline, and then confidently arranges those minute details into gestural, rhythmic, vivid renderings. His style is characterised by broad brushstrokes and streaks of paint that create atmospheric backdrops for the built environment. The fast-drying properties of acrylic paint capture his intent with immediacy. His framings of cities as panoramas results in kaleidoscopic and energetic representations of place.
FitzGerald then layers onto his com-
positions writing that fuses historical and geographical facts with personal reflections. The words seem to emerge from streams of consciousness, informed by life experiences and fiction. The artist often chronicles himself in the third person as a central protagonist within the universes he creates.
For example, My Mother in Verona on a Holiday in Italy in 2013 (2022) shows his mother walking along an impasto grey road that bisects the composition. Quick brushstrokes denote the sky and the sea, while schematic rectangular forms suggest buildings dotted along the trail. This visual information spurs ruminations on his relationship with his mother, and female iconography more widely: the handwritten text references figures, such as Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana, inventing correlations between these women.
By referring to David Hockney in his review, Dunne was situating FitzGerald within a conventional art historical lineage, rather than in the realm of ‘outsider art,’ associated with practitioners who typically have not received training and operate independently of the art establishment. Yet FitzGerald’s practice also has commonalities with practitioners free from societal constraints, as those active within the field of ‘outsider art’ are usually known.
Through this lens, FitzGerald is among a growing cohort of unique practitioners pressuring an art world that has traditionally favoured normative identities (cultural, ideological, gender, and so on), claiming broader inclusion, while maintaining their idiosyncratic existence. It is within this in-betweenness that FitzGerald productively and progressively operates, complicating the distinction between mainstream art and art from the supposed fringes of society.
Miguel Amado is a curator and critic, and director of Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, in County Cork, where Fergus FitzGerald’s first retrospective, ‘Geography Is Important’, will be on view from 12 April to 21 June. siriusartscentre.ie
DAY MAGEE DISCUSSES THEIR EXPERIENCE OF THE BASIC INCOME PILOT PROGRAMME DUE TO END THIS YEAR.
A LITTLE UNDER three years ago, I hit the jackpot. Thanks to the efforts of the National Campaign for the Arts (ncfa.ie) and the former Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot scheme opened for applications in April 2022. I applied, at peace with my threadbare odds. That September however, I opened an email. Of 8206 eligible applicants, 2000 artists and creative workers had been randomly selected, and I, gobsmacked, was one of them.
For three years, come August, selected artists have received €325 a week. Every few months, we have submitted extensive reports of our earnings from our practice, as well as our general financial stability and mental health. An additional 1000 artists, not selected for the payment, formed a parallel control group as part of the scheme, compensated with a fee for their self-reportage. The BIA payment is taxable as self-employed income, and whilst I bemoan the filing process every October as much as anyone, I have taken pride in being able to pay taxes from my work – to meaningfully participate in citizenship via my labour. I have taken my own selection for the scheme as a call to duty to produce the best work I can, in the discipline I have trained in.
In December 2023, the government published the first report of collected data, as part of the longitudinal research that accompanies the scheme.1 The results were unsurprising: artists on BIA were able to invest more time and money in their practice, and their mental health and quality of life improved, compared to the control group. According to the second impact analysis paper, published in May 2024, BIA recipients invest on average €550 more per month in their practice than the control group, on things like equipment, materials, advertising and marketing, workspaces, and work-related travel.2 Furthermore, BIA recipients are on average 6 % less likely to have felt downhearted or depressed and over 8% less likely to have experienced anxiety, compared to the control group.3
I’ve done my own research; I have witnessed fellow participants use the time afforded by BIA to form thriving creative communities, which double as professional forums, thus demonstrating the wide-ranging benefits beyond the individual. I have watched the careers of parenting artists, queer artists, disabled artists, and artists of colour flourish because of BIA. Artists, who do not ordinarily earn enough from working in the arts, have been able to devote themselves to their practice. For three years, the scheme has enabled me to sustain my practice on its own terms. Planning for the future has become more possible with BIA. Nonetheless, in August, the scheme is scheduled to end. Will the scheme be extended or expanded to include more
artists? At the time of writing, there is no commitment to do either, as per the drafted Programme for Government. Current BIA participants will likely return to the economic precarity that all other artists have had to circumvent in the meantime, without this life-changing security. The arts community is necessarily tightknit in the face of this precarity, and yet we must equally compete against one another within a dense bureaucracy of funding applications, so as to be paid for our labour.
I didn’t have a straightforward trajectory in my career as an artist – indeed, the majority don’t – and resisted art college until my mid-twenties. By then, I’d developed a chronic illness, which deeply impacted my employability. In learning to manage potentially lifelong illness, I chose to dedicate myself to my career within my limitations. The SUSI Grant allowed me to continue investing in and professionalising my practice, along with the time and studio space that art college afforded me. By the time I graduated in 2021, I had exhibited in shows across the island and had staged my first solo show within a year. This was only possible because of the cultural and institutional value that surrounds access to education.
I have often felt my own share of survivor’s guilt in the wake of my own luck. Having now experienced what is possible through BIA – basic security, even dignity – the thought of returning to less is enough for me to question my career path more than ever. While being a working artist teaches you the value of money and time, it also teaches you what society does and does not value. Ideologically, Basic Income has felt like a governmental vote of confidence in a generation of artists, whose contributions to Irish society, culture, and global reputation are being strongly recognised. Sadly, quite a few of the BIA recipients I have spoken to are currently considering administrative jobs in other sectors, to which many of these creative practices may be lost.
Day Magee is an artist, performer, and writer based in Dublin.
@daymagee
1 Doire Ó Cuinn and Nadia Feldkircher, Arts Work Conditions & Perspectives: Statistical Release as part of “A Portrait of the Arts Sector”, Government of Ireland, December 2023.
2 Nadia Feldkircher and Brian O’Donnell, Basic Income for the Arts: Impact Assessment (First year), Government of Ireland, May 2024.
3 Ibid.
AOIBHEANN GREENAN OFFERS GUIDELINES FOR ARTISTS TO UNCOVER THE DEEPER MOTIVATIONS OF THEIR PRACTICE.
AT THIS TIME of year, many of us are kneedeep in funding applications, planning strategies, and forging ahead on creative projects. This collective urgency often brings a frantic energy. But when we operate on autopilot, we risk locking ourselves in projects that might not align with our core values.
Here’s a thought: What if, instead of focusing solely on what you’re working on, you shifted your attention to why? Now is the perfect moment to engage in honest self-reflection. Outlined below is a threestage framework to help you examine your motivations.
1. PAST: Reflect
In our pursuit of growth and novelty, we often overlook the insights and discoveries we’ve already made. Reflecting on your creative journey can uncover valuable threads to weave into your current work. Start with this timeline exercise:
• Chart Your Milestones: Create a document and list the significant moments in your career in chronological order. A milestone could be a pivotal project, residency, major show, or even a transition into a new medium.
• Reflect on Shifts: Under each milestone, add bullet points detailing how it evolved your practice. Include new themes, ideas, techniques, processes, or methodologies that emerged.
• Build a Visual Archive: Add images of your most significant works from each phase. Include links to essays, books, films, or artworks that influenced you. Once your timeline is complete, treat it as a personal archive – a touchstone to revisit and update as your practice evolves. Reflect on it with these questions:
• What initial curiosity motivated each milestone of your timeline?
• What recurring themes or threads consistently run through your work?
• Are there particular ideas you’d forgotten about that still excite you?
• Are there any unresolved ideas or concepts worth revisiting?
• How does your past work inform what you’re creating now?
2. PRESENT: Assess
Now turn your attention to your current projects and assess how well they align with your values and authentic interests. Use these prompts to dig deeper:
• Why am I drawn to this project?
• What do I hope to achieve?
• How does this project align with my long-term vision for my practice?
• Who is this project for?
• If no one ever saw this project, would I still want to create it?
• How will this project elevate or challenge my practice? Next, check in with your emotions:
• Does this project excite me?
• Does it motivate me?
• Does it feel nourishing, or am I doing it out of obligation?
• Does the process seem as rewarding as the potential outcome?
Challenge your answers with a ‘five whys’ exercise: for each response, ask “why?” five times, to uncover deeper motivations. Finally, evaluate whether your reasons are primarily intrinsic (e.g. personal fulfilment, self-expression, growth), or extrinsic (e.g. recognition, financial gain). Neither is inherently good or bad, and most projects will involve a blend of both. However, it’s worth remembering that intrinsic motivations often lead to work that feels more meaningful.
Additionally, pay attention to how your project resonates emotionally in your body. Excitement and curiosity usually signal alignment with your deeper values, while hesitation or dread may point to a misalignment. Trust these feelings as guides.
3. FUTURE: Define
With a clearer view of your past insights and current motivations, it’s time to look ahead. Define your non-negotiables – these are the core criteria that each project must meet, in order for you to feel fulfilled. For example:
1. Exciting collaborations
2. Prominent platforms for exposure
3. Feasibility within my resources
4. Potential to develop new skills
5. Travel opportunities
Narrow your list to your top five priorities, then, use this simple scoring exercise: Create a table with seven columns. Label them: ‘Opportunity’, your five non-negotiables, and ‘Score’. List your potential projects in the ‘Opportunity’ column. For each project, assign a score out of 10 for how well it meets each criterion. Total the scores to determine which projects align most closely with your values and goals.
Your top three priorities require firm boundaries. Say no to distractions that don’t align with these projects and protect your creative energy with rest and routines that sustain your commitment. The beauty of defining your non-negotiables is that you now have a filter for future opportunities. This ensures your efforts remain purpose-driven and aligned with your longterm vision.
Taking a moment to define your deeper why will sharpen your focus and rekindle your creative drive. As you move forward, allow this newfound clarity to act as your compass, keeping you rooted in what truly matters to your work.
Aoibheann Greenan is an Irish artist and the founder of Rodeo Oracle, a creative coaching and mentoring service for artists.
rodeooracle.com
AN ESSAY BY JOHN BOWYER BELL, FIRST PUBLISHED BY THE SSI IN OCTOBER 1981, FOCUSING ON HAZARDOUS ART MATERIALS.
SOME YEARS AGO in New York, Stan Landsman, painter of enormous, brilliant canvasses, made a delightful discovery. A friend of a friend working as a chemist in a paint factory had come upon a splendid, new, but apparently useless, product – a plastic paint-like substance that dried swiftly, a matter of minutes for thin glazes, an hour for thick slabs, and yet appeared to have all of the visible qualities of oils plus a potential for special effects. It was probably some early acrylic of sorts. With the aid of his friends, Landsman moved a dozen or so kegs of the goodie to his studio. Within days he had nearly completed a series of huge paintings, great squares of glowing colours, spectacular overlays, heavy glazes – very impressive. The new medium was about to be in popular demand as the word spread. Then very late one night, Landsman awoke to hear a sharp crack, almost like a pistol shot. The lights were switched on and there were the paintings lined along the wall. One, the earliest, was in shreds, hanging from the stretcher. The next, as he watched, drew together, shrinking toward the middle. A crack and it too hung in shreds. Worse, the shreds began to smoke. The studio was filled with a strange unknown odour. The kegs of colour, if opened, began to smoke. His studio had tuned into a bomb. A few telephone calls brought the same set of friends. The kegs were corked, rolled three blocks to a pier on the Hudson River and jettisoned. The smouldering, crackling paintings followed. Landsman had discovered and discarded Pop Art before its time. He had also a narrow and, unfortunately, not altogether rare escape in an experiment with novel materials (he now shows boxes at Leo Castelli’s).
A less happy conclusion occurred at about the same time to Bob Mallory, who, like many others, was making things out of other mediums, structures that fell between painting and sculpture. He had discovered a chemical that would permeate most organic material in liquid form but then dry into a plastic-like surface. A similar substance was used to make hard plastic chairs. Thus, he collected, bits of burning buildings (there was a photograph in the New York Daily
NAME HAZARD
News of him leaving a flaming warehouse just as the fireman arrived, his arms full of smouldering bits); rotten wood, ruined canvas mail bags, anything would do. These were collected and assembled in his huge studio, stretched out along the floor for forty or fifty yards. Once finished they were sprayed and/or soaked in his plastic medium. As soon as you came into the studio, the odour hit the back of the nose almost like a needle. Mallory claimed he never noticed it. If you came to the studio often, this was true (you did not smell much else either). At the same time Mallory was seeing several medical specialists about a variety of vague complaints. They could tell there was trouble, a lot in fact, wrong blood counts, liver malfunction, lung scars, all sorts of unpleasant things that seemed to get worse. But there was no cause and hence no cure. They did not think to ask what he was doing every day – a sculptor sculpts, what more? – and he for almost too long did not think to tell them about his new medium. By the time he did, it was almost too late. He was dispatched to the fresh air of the Far West, took up bronze, and eventually recovered.
The moral of all this is simple. New materials (even old white lead) can be very dangerous, the more so since they are new and are often being used by the innocent for novel purpose. They do not look dangerous, feel dangerous and yet (even with everyday commercial spray enamels) they are dangerous. Spray a can of enamel into the air and see what collects on the floor – and in your lungs. One can be damaged by touching the novel, simply breathing the unknown – being an innovative artist, introducing new materials with high craft for good purpose, involves real risk at times (and no one knows which time). Landsman did not go pop with his art and Mallory was not fatally strangled by his medium but there may be a next time for someone.
John Bowyer Bell (1931-2003) was an American historian, artist, and art critic. This opinion piece was first published in the SSI Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 2, October 1981.
PRECAUTIONS
Carbolic Acid Causes inflammation of skin, dermatitis, in some cases gangrene.
Use with gloves, eye protection, preferably local exhaust ventilation.
Ammonia Corrosive of skin and eyes, can lead to dermatitis. Use ventilation, gloves, barrier cream and eye protection.
Nitric Acid Skin and eye burns, corrosive to skin. Wear gloves and ventilation mask.
Turpentine
Central nervous system depressant. Use only in well ventilated conditions. Use respirator or local exhaust ventilation.
Polyester Resin Highly toxic vapour. Cerebral system depressant.
Use special independent exhaust ventilation, with respirator.
LIAN BELL SPEAKS WITH MEMBERS OF THE EXHIBITION CLUB DIRTY SOLUTIONS ABOUT THEIR TEST EVENT AT TBG+S.
TO BE CLEAR, we hadn’t planned anything. When the five of us first met, that’s when all of the planning started. That was about a year and a half ago. There were a lot of conversations about the perceived lack of stuff. What stuff? Studios. Isabel Nolan used to be in Broadstone Studios, which was also a kind of hub. They’d have shows on in there, studio spaces, and there were weird parties. It was just great. There were loads of other things then, like Block T, The Joinery, Basic Space, The Workhouse – and a lot of ‘slack spaces’, post-recession. We expressed a sense of frustration that those kinds of things weren’t happening anymore. On top of that, there was a sense of a post-pandemic shrinking of the public sphere.
We wanted to gather, test stuff out, create a sense of conviviality and shared sense of community, without it necessarily being cliquey. A sort of recognition, as you would have in a big studio space with other people. All of those parties kind of gave me jobs. It’s how I met everybody. And I still do projects with [those] people now. So, I wanted to have fun. I think the intention was to provide an opportunity for a kind of community to re-establish.
Dirty Solutions is an exhibition club. Club as in metal detectorists, rather than club as in dancing. You meet up every so often for a set amount of time and talk about something specific. Dry Run was like a variety show where people could test stuff with a live studio audience. You had to take a chance on us because you might never see this again. We wrote a letter to the artists inviting them to be involved in some way: “Have you made something that doesn’t fit into your practice? Do you want to test something out? You don’t have to be yourself.” A lot of this is Vaari Claffey’s vision. She’s sort of a node and has all of these connections. Over 30 artists were involved.
Dry Run booked out in about 20 minutes, and there was a waiting list of something like 100. The stakes were higher than I thought. But I thought people were going to have fun, even if the thing was a total failure. Even if the event tanked, we’d still come out of that evening saying: “that was bizarre, but I saw some beautiful objects.”
We wanted to protect the performers to a certain extent, so there wasn’t too much expectation. There was also something nice about not knowing whether someone was going to be a performer or not. A sense of ambiguity fed into the idea that this was a kind of community. There was a loose idea that it was backstage at a talk show. This thing about mistakes; it’s much more fun and interesting and there’s a way in for the audience because you’re not presenting a complete thing. You’re saying, “I’m quite vulnerable in this situation, so there’s room for you to get in.” There was a structure to the event but it kind of went awry immediately because the door to the studio couldn’t
be opened. I loved it because something was absolutely going to go wrong, and that was immediately out of the way.
If you’re at an art performance in normal situations, the worst thing you can do is laugh, or draw attention to yourself. It was 99.9% art audience at Dry Run, and we’ve all gone through years of training on ‘the right way’ to be an audience member. I think a lot of people were still in that mode. Then for Act II, things had kind of settled, because people had gotten a beer and were milling about. And you had the TV audience trope of holding up signs to tell people how to react. That was a neat way of getting around that awkwardness too. It might have been theatrical, but it wasn’t theatre. The reason it took a long time to begin with is that we were working out our relationships with one another. What our roles were. How to talk to one another. Trust. For the next iteration, we wouldn’t have to do all that again. There are risks that come with this, right? That you’re a little too complacent or too comfortable by doing the same thing again. We don’t want to make it too easy for ourselves or have the same people attending every time. And it’s hard to become more choreographed or stage-managed without it deflating the energy or allowing that space for mistakes. It has to be about failure.
Dirty Solutions is an exhibition club made up of arts professionals based in Dublin. Current members are Lily Cahill, Vaari Claffey, Francis Halsall, Aphra Hill, and Isabel Nolan. Dry Run took place at TBG+S on 30 October 2024. The audience was invited to “test a live studio show featuring chats, performances, music, screenings, and sculptures where artists explore alternative ways of being, working and exhibiting.” Documentation is available on the Dirty Solutions Instagram page.
@dirtysolutionslike
This conversation took place between two members of Dirty Solutions (Cahill and Halsall) and audience member, Lian Bell – an artist based in Dublin. lianbell.com
IN A SIGNIFICANT move for the preservation of Northern Ireland’s performance art history, the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) has secured the archive of the Belfast International Festival of Performance Art (BIFPA). This acquisition safeguards invaluable insights into the country’s performance art heritage, offering future generations of artists, researchers, and the general public unprecedented access to a wealth of material documenting over a decade of boundary-pushing performances.
Founded by artist, lecturer and curator Brian Connolly, BIFPA was established as an independent annual festival within Ulster University in 2013. Dedicated to creating innovative performance works, it brought together international, national, and local artists, alongside emerging talent from Ulster University’s Belfast School of Art. BIFPA became a vital platform for experimental work, with performances that challenged traditional notions of visual arts and creative expression. Connolly’s vision, supported by other key figures such as Alastair MacLennan, Sandra Johnston, and the Bbeyond collective, significantly shaped Northern Ireland’s artistic landscape. Fostering collaboration and innovation, they created a support network that continues to thrive. The BIFPA archive stands as a testament to their efforts, preserving artists’ legacies while providing a comprehensive resource for future scholarship and creative exploration.
Performance art, by its ephemeral nature, poses unique challenges to preservation, resulting in a noticeable gap in Irish collections. The BIFPA archive, currently spanning from 2010 to 2024, counters this ephemerality with an extensive collection of digital-born materials. It comprises over 6,000 images and 400 videos of more than 200 performances. The archive documents the evolution of this dynamic art form, offering a rare resource that bridges past and present.
The archive’s significance is illuminated by the daring individual performances preserved within. One such instance is Christoff Gillen’s 2015 work, A Thousand and One Kisses, a performance that made headlines. Gillen chalked a ‘rainbow of love’ on pavements to highlight LGBTQ+ rights and marriage equality. The performance, however, was disrupted when a passerby became hostile, and a Belfast City Council warden issued Gillen a fine for graffiti. The artist’s solicitor argued that the act was a form of expression rather than vandalism. Ultimately, the council waived the fine, provided Gillen consulted them about future performances on public property. Highlighting tensions that can arise when performance art challenges societal norms and regulations, this and other BIFPA performances demonstrate the importance of boundary exploration to encourage dialogue.
Beyond its historical significance, the
BIFPA archive is a living resource. Contemporary artists can draw inspiration from its rich documentation, and researchers can engage with primary source material to investigate the intersections of performance art with social and political movements. As the archive grows under NIVAL’s stewardship, it will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on the future of performance art in Ireland. It preserves the work of trailblazing artists, ensuring their legacies will continue to inspire and influence new generations of creators.
In 2024, to mark its 175th anniversary, the Belfast School of Art announced a partnership with the National College of Art and Design (NCAD). This new collaboration highlights the importance of fostering innovation and knowledge exchange across institutions in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Together with NIVAL’s acquisition of the BIFPA archive, these initiatives underscore the value of cross-border cultural preservation and educational collaboration, enriching Ireland’s artistic and academic landscape.
NIVAL’s commitment to providing free access to its collections ensures that the BIFPA archive remains open for exploration, education, and research. Selected materials are accessible online through NIVAL’s digital catalogue, and the collection can be consulted in full at the NIVAL Reading Room.
FINGLETON
“We are all connected through food. We are all connected through soil. We are all connected through life. And those are the interconnections that we have to build consciously now.”1
FOR OVER 20 years, much of my life and art practice have been focused on food systems, and the increasingly radical acts of growing and eating local and organic food.
I regularly wonder how we have reached this point, where most of the food and seed in the world is controlled by a small number of global corporations. Why are we eating poisoned and ultra-processed food, even though we know it is damaging our guts and making us and our loved ones sick? Why are we, as an island, so dependent on imported food? How can we feed ourselves in increasingly precarious climactic conditions and protect biodiversity at the same time?
These questions propelled me to travel all the way from our farm in Kerry to Navdanya at the foothills of the Himalayas in India. Navdanya biodiversity and conservation farm was founded by Dr Vandana Shiva in 1987 (navdanya.org). Vandana is a prolific writer, internationally renowned food activist, and environmental thinker. She not only resists capitalist food systems at an international level, but she and her team grow 750 varieties of rice, fruit and vegetables in the living seed bank on the farm, as a way to protect and save indigenous seeds.
I travelled with my partner, photographer Rena Blake, to take part in a month-long agro-ecology residency at the Earth University in Navdanya, with 20 other diverse artists and activists from around the world. All the food for the month was vegetarian, organic and locally sourced. The programme started each day with herbal tea at 6:30am, breakfast, an opening circle and shramdaan (shared tasks in the communal area) before heading to the fields to do whatever jobs were needed: harvesting, seed saving or weeding. I was really glad to have a cold bucket shower after even a short stint of working outdoors in 35 degrees and high humidity. This was followed by lectures, practical workshops and opportunities to present our own projects until around 8:30pm each evening. It was brilliant and intense in equal measure.
I drew in journals every day as a way of processing the experience, both for myself and so that I could share it with others upon my return. I set up an outdoor studio for myself on the balcony outside our room overlooking the mango orchard. One of the absolute highlights of the trip was being in the stillness of the seedbank and drawing with the seed savers Sheela Godiyal and Kavita Negi. There was something deeply moving about being surrounded by seeds grown with such love and passion for this planet we call home.
Vandana was extremely generous with her time and energy, delivering lectures with lots of time for discussion afterwards. It was a real privilege to interview her about the interconnectedness between food, creativity and climate change for my short film, The Radical Art of Living (2025). She had strong cautionary messages for Ireland in terms of protecting small growers and food producers. “Just remembering the Irish famine, I would just say, if the current trends continue, every place will be a place for a potential famine.”
Dr Mira Shiva, Vandana’s sister, was with us for a few days, weaving stories from her lifelong experience as a medical doctor and activist. She talked about an international meeting, where a scientist was proposing to create square tomatoes to facilitate easier packaging. Those present, reminded him that everyone knew
tomatoes were round, and therefore would know that this was not natural. He responded, “In one generation they will forget that tomatoes were round.”
Mira cautioned us against this collective amnesia and shifting baseline, whereby each generation assumes that their degraded ecological environment is ‘normal’.
‘The Square Tomato’ formed in my mind as a symbol for so many things that are challenging within the current food system. I decided to use it as the title for my current exhibition at Siamsa Tíre in Tralee, which includes the film and drawings from Navdanya.
Before leaving, I asked Vandana how she sustained her energy, and she said “Living truth. Expressing truth is my oxygen.” It’s not always easy to digest hard truths but I left Navdanya with a renewed sense of urgency. People have asked me many times if it was a life changing trip, but I feel it was more life affirming. I didn’t get answers to all my questions but rather a validation for my concerns and a clearer call to action. As Vandana says in the last line of her book, The Nature of Nature, “With every seed we sow, every plant we grow, every morsel we eat, we make a choice between degeneration and regeneration.”2 My choice is clear.
Lisa Fingleton is an artist, writer and organic grower based at The Barna Way, an organic farm, woodland and wildlife sanctuary in Kerry. lisafingleton.com
Fingleton’s film, The Radical Art of Living: An Interview with Dr Vandana Shiva (2025), is being screened as part of her solo exhibition, ‘The Square Tomato’, which continues at Siamsa Tíre until 22 March. siamsatire.com
1 Vandana Shiva, The Nature of Nature: The Metabolic Disorder of Climate Change
2 Ibid.
BARRY MCHUGH INVITES REFLECTIONS FROM THE MAVIS/ ARC ALUMNI AND ASSOCIATES ON THE IMPACT AND LEGACY OF THE MA PROGRAMME AT IADT DÚN LAOGHAIRE.
ON 5 SEPTEMBER 2024, an email was circulated that would quietly mark the end of an era. The MA in Art and Research Collaboration (ARC) programme at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology (IADT) announced that it would no longer be accepting applications. The changing educational and economic environments were cited as key reasons for the course ending, with IADT now reviewing its postgraduate provision, particularly in light of the housing and cost-of-living challenges being faced by many students (arciadt.ie).
The current ARC second-year students will be the last cohort to graduate, following a group exhibition at The LAB Gallery in December 2024 and final assessments in January 2025. Clara McSweeney, ARC-LAB Gallery Curatorial Scholar (2023-25), will curate an exhibition titled ‘Liquid Urbanisms’ at The LAB Gallery (13 March – 24 April 2025).
Established in 2014, ARC was a full-time, practical, taught MA programme. It built on the success of its previous iteration – the MA in Visual Arts Practice (MAVIS) programme, which ran at IADT from 2004 to 2014. Offering distinct pathways in art making, criticism, and curating, MAVIS could be completed either part-time over two years or full-time over one year. The course was primarily delivered off campus, initially in Studio 6 at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (2004-2008), and then later, at The LAB Gallery (2008-2014).
During its ten year history, MAVIS made a significant contribution to the professionalisation and internationalisation of contemporary art in Ireland, with highly committed staff and students that included accomplished artists, curators and critics, as evidenced by the list of prominent alumni (arciadt.ie). MAVIS gave students direct contact with some of the institutions they would potentially
interact with, if pursuing a career in the arts upon graduation. Prominent institutional collaborations included: a series of seminars on politics and the public realm, hosted by Hugh Lane Gallery (2013); a public lecture on Participatory and Relational Practices at Fire Station Artists’ Studios (2013); Curatorial Session, with invited international curators, delivered in partnership with Project Arts Centre (2009); a seminar on film and video distribution with Jonas Mekas (2008); student internship opportunities with Ireland at Venice (2005, 2009); a seminar on independent publishing at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios (2005); and No Contest, a symposium on contemporary art criticism (2004).
The MAVIS course was replaced by ARC in 2014. Maeve Connolly and Sinéad Hogan led the transition from MAVIS to ARC, with Maeve having previously contributed to the MAVIS programme, alongside directors Finola Jones, Gerard Mermoz, Amanda Ralph, and Mick Wilson. The MAVIS and ARC programmes changed over time, but some important fundamentals remained the same, with a continued focus on practice-led research and peer critique. The courses also made excellent use of visiting lecturers, who were active in the contemporary art scene. In addition, the ARC/LAB Curatorial Scholarship was developed with Sheena Barrett (former curator at The LAB and Assistant Arts Officer at Dublin City Council) and initiated in 2019. Run biannually, it offered one curatorial applicant tuition fees, a stipend of €15,000, and a research space in Dublin City Arts Office. The scholarship was a forward-thinking development, understanding the benefits it would afford a postgraduate student working in the creative field.
To appreciate the impact and legacy of ARC/ MAVIS and why its ending is so noteworthy, one need only look at the list of graduates. Many of the alumni –which includes countless artists, curators, writers, educators, administrators, producers, and directors – have had a significant impact on the visual art scene in Ireland and beyond. With this in mind, The Visual Artists’ News Sheet invited contributions from selected alumni and associates, who have kindly shared their experiences, insights, and reflections on ARC/MAVIS and its legacy. Some of these responses are published in this extended feature article, which is organised according to key themes.
Many of the responses from the MAVIS/ ARC alumni, outlined below, allude to the impacts on professional practice as characterised by: an expanded awareness of contemporary visual art and its supporting theories, methodologies, and critical discourses; the promotion of interdisciplinarity and the expansion of supportive professional networks; and experiential knowledge of local, national, and international visual art ecologies.
MAVIS had a remarkable impact on my personal development and my professional practice. It gave me an awareness of a broad range of critical thinking, artistic practices, and methods of research making. It also enabled me to be part of a supportive community of peers, whose guidance and alliance remain a characteristic of my working life.
Mark Garry (MAVIS 2005): Artist and Lecturer at TU Dublin.
The MAVIS course was of great value to me in two ways. I had just returned to live in Dublin after many years abroad. So, for me, it was a great introduction to Irish-based artists, writers, and curators, with whom I formed many important relationships. Secondly, the course required focus on the professional side of my practice – including presenting my work, securing exhibitions, and so on – none of which I had been introduced to during my BA course.
Helen Hughes (MAVIS 2007): Artist
When I began the MA in early 2006, I’d come from a BA in Art History at UCD which, though enlightening, had none of the experimental interdisciplinarity of the MA. While I was already collaborating with artists at the time, I found that the conversations and processes I was engaging in on MAVIS were both challenging and hugely valuable in terms of preparing me for what I would encounter later in my career. Being forced to defend your position is a vital skill and there was a very healthy amount of intellectual debate on the MA at that time. I recall heated and emotional exchanges on topical subjects, such as Relational Aesthetics and more specifically, what participation in art meant as a viewer. The MA placed me in conversation with mentors and peers
who changed how I thought about art and exhibition making. It also fundamentally expanded my community.
Pádraic E. Moore (MAVIS 2007): Director of Ormson House, Limerick
MAVIS shaped my understanding of the contemporary art landscape in Ireland. It gave me access to academic, contextual and art historical knowledge, and provided me with a critical community of peer practitioners. The MA guided me towards what I wanted to do by posing meaningful questions – For whom do you produce? What is a curator? Why would you want to professionalise your practice? – and by encouraging me to nurture my instincts, pursue hunches, and try things out. I remember the intensity and excitement of the crits, the luminosity of the visiting lecturers, the depth of critical discourse, the urgency of all our projects, the joy of inventing research methodologies, the constant unpacking, the perpetual flagging, and the seemingly inexhaustible commitment of time, thought and feedback offered by the truly brilliant teaching team. To me, the programme was vital and formative. Its impact on my practice has been lasting and monumental.
Kate Strain (MAVIS 2012): Director of Kunstverein Aughrim
I did ARC two years after graduating with a BA in Visual Arts Practice in 2015. I had been working part-time, painting, and doing a few shows, but I really didn’t have any idea how to navigate the art scene here in Ireland – for example, how to talk to curators, how to secure funding, and so on. Doing the MA was about basing myself in Dublin, even if only for one day a week, going to see exhibitions, being critical about the work I was seeing, talking about it, both with the tutors and fellow students, and then applying that to how I was contextualising my own work. It was also so important to meet curators and other artists; Maeve and Sinéad were brilliant in pushing me to have those conversations. The MA gave me the confidence I needed to keep painting and believe in the work and what it has to say to the world. In more practical terms, it put my work in front of other artists and curators and helped to build professional relationships. It also got me writing and getting used to the language of statements and applications, which has been very help-
ful in securing funding and opportunities.
Ciara Roche (ARC 2019): Artist
I was awarded the first ARC/LAB Curatorial Scholarship. It was brilliant working in Dublin City Council Arts Office and The LAB Gallery, which got me to where I am now. ARC was a very practical learning experience. It allowed me to focus on an area that I wanted to know more about –namely, disability cultural policy and access.
Róisín Power Hackett (ARC 2021): Arts Worker at Arts & Disability Ireland
ARC allowed me to develop my arts practice and led me to an expanded view of what that might be. Through collaborations with external institutions and my peers, and with the well-considered guidance of the lecturing staff, I learned that I was interested in facilitating other’s practices as well as my own. In having a varied mix of practices within the one room (visual artists, curators, producers, writers), a key take away for me was that there can be a fluidity between each of these modes of making.
Lucy Tevlin (ARC 2021): International Arts Officer, Arts Council of Ireland
ARC did for me exactly what I had hoped for. I was aware of some gaps in my art practice, and ARC allowed me to fill those gaps with theoretical and practical knowledge… ARC granted me access to generous lecturers, which included former MA students such as Jesse Jones and Alan James Burns. We had speakers from well-established
art institutions such as Ormston House (Limerick), Workhouse Union (Callan, Kilkenny), The LAB Gallery (Dublin), and IMMA (Dublin)… Applying for funding opportunities was part of the MA. Such practice and very specific advice from lecturers and guest lecturers contributed hugely to my art career; upon graduation, I was selected for the Arts Council Agility Award and the Transform Associate Artist Award at Mermaid Arts Centre.
Elida Maiques (ARC 2022): Artist
I was honoured to receive the last ARCLAB Gallery Curatorial Scholarship. As well as being a full-time student on the MA course, I also worked part-time in The LAB Gallery and Dublin City Arts Office, under the mentorship of Julia Moustacchi and Margarita Cappock. This scholarship has provided me with the experience to now embark on my own freelance curatorial and producing career in the arts in Ireland. ARC allowed me to immerse myself in Dublin’s art scene, which I was previously unfamiliar with, having grown up in the southwest of Ireland. Additionally, under the guidance of Maeve Connolly and Sinéad Hogan, I have really realised my artistic and curatorial interests during ARC. The course has helped me identify the types of projects that I enjoy working on and has changed the trajectory of my whole career.
Clara McSweeney (ARC 2025): Independent Curator, ARC-LAB Gallery Curatorial Scholar (2023-25)
I taught on MAVIS on a regular basis for three or four years in the early 2010s. At that stage, I’d seen a fair amount of art schools in Germany and the UK and realised that MAVIS was a version unique to itself. It gave access for many students from different walks of life to a room in The LAB, where all kinds of creative diversions seemed to occur. Artistic position seemed to matter. Peer groups mattered. Conversations could often be arduous, stretched, critical.
Sean Lynch (MAVIS Associate Lecturer, 2010-14): Artist
In my mind, the MAVIS/ARC course was more than a postgraduate qualification. I think of it as a programme that charted the changing horizons of opportunity for independent artistic and curatorial practice – adjacent to the fixed infrastructures that had been built in Ireland a generation previously. It’s difficult to feel anything other than sad that it’s now come to an end, but I have so many good memories – conversations and chit chat, professional friendships, and frameworks of critical thought. I can’t quite untangle it all.
Matt Packer, [MAVIS Guest Lecturer (2012-24), Module Leader, Art Writing (2012-13), and ARC External Assessor (2021-24)]: Director of EVA International
I sent many of my students, over the years, from the SETU School of Art and Design in Wexford to MAVIS/ARC. It was a perfect course, based in the ‘real world’, with a diverse core of students from different fields and an eclectic mix of guest lecturers. This MA programme will be sorely missed as it was perfect for students from Wexford or other rural areas who could not afford to live in Dublin. It was also unique in Ireland and possibly the closest companion to the amazing Dutch postgraduate courses at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, and De Ateliers and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Everything Maeve Connolly and her team do is amazing, and she used her professional networks continuously to further the course and to give students as real as possible deep dive into the professional art world, which is rare in institutions that are becoming more academised by the year.
Orla Barry (MAVIS Guest Lecturer): Artist, Farmer, and Lecturer at SETU
KEY AREAS OF LEARNING ON MAVIS/ARC
As outlined in the responses below, an emphasis on practical skills was central to learning on ARC/MAVIS. This included best practice approaches to pitching, presenting, documenting, and writing about art, as well as refining the skills of critical reflection, both in relation to one’s own work and that of others.
I entered MAVIS straight after my degree. I had studied sculpture in NCAD, so the masters was vital for me to deepen my practice and develop collaborative and critical approaches to art making. I made friends and contacts during that time which have continued in the years after the MA. Maeve Connolly, in particular, was a lecturer I feel very lucky to have had during this time; she supported the political and social context of filmmaking through theory that influences my work to this day. It is very sad to see the
course go, as it was such an important part of the Irish contemporary arts community.
Jesse Jones (MAVIS 2005): Artist and Lecturer at TU Dublin
Technically, I did not finish the two-year MA, as my work on the PhotoIreland Festival in 2010 became too demanding. However, broadly speaking, the MA course was instrumental in the separation of production and curatorial work in my own practice. The work of my peers, as much as the lecturers, and the international trip, informed new ways of thinking, reflecting on issues and practices, as much as challenging and generating ideas. It also was a superb way to re-connect with contemporary practices beyond my area of work.
Ángel Luis González Fernández (MAVIS 2010) Director at Photo Ireland
Through MAVIS, I was taught the theory and practice of curating art, but I was also challenged by the introduction of global topics, artists and exhibitions that were unfamiliar to me. These lessons and resources provided me with knowledge I still carry with me today, through the readings, lectures, peer reviews, and group critiques that I participated in. Since my time as MAVIS Student Representative on the IADT Programme Board in 2009, I have served on the boards of many community, faculty, and non-profit organisations.
Angel Bellaran (MAVIS 2010): Artist Educator, Paul Robeson Galleries and Express Newark at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the ARC MA course. I entered with an undergraduate in Sociology and Social Policy from Trinity College, and no professional artistic experience. The MA was a wonderful and welcoming introduction. It felt so specific to my experience, preferences and interests. I’ve met friends, worked with peers, and have been introduced to professionals, institutions and opportunities in Irish art. I’m so grateful to Maeve and Sinéad for this opportunity and saddened to see the end of the MA.
Emma Hurson (ARC 2025): Artist
is an accredited
course for critics, curators and artmakers, located in the heart of
city. EU Applications are now being taken for course commencing January 2009. Closing date for applications: 26.09.08 / www.MAVIS.ie
Being placed to do the year’s first crit, despite not knowing what a crit was, or ever having taken part in a crit before. My ‘recent work’ at the time was an oversized game of Connect Four, using words and images from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 on the playing pieces to make players construct a remixed version of the story. This, of course, went down like a lead balloon, as I was the only ‘critic’ in my year on the course, and everyone kept asking, “How is this criticism?” Great start to the year!
Chris Fite-Wassilak (MAVIS 2007): Associate Editor at ArtReview magazine; Associate Tutor in MA Writing at the Royal College of Art, London
Highlights I can recall, after all these years, include: a visit from Fern Bayer (curator and archivist) of General Idea to coincide with the seminal show at Project Arts Centre, curated by Grant Watson; a memorable class visit in 2006 to the Berlin Biennale, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick; and a raucous fancy dress party at the former Odessa Club in Dublin in December 2006, which culminated in a battle over the turntables between the rockers and the ravers.
Pádraic E. Moore (MAVIS 2007): Director of Ormson House
Sean Lynch always encouraged me to host absurd exhibitions in bus stops and chip shops, which seemed daunting at the time but is actually quite close to where my work with Contemporary Quarters sits today, as satirical performances and installations, presented in public and semi-public spaces.
Eve Woods (MAVIS 2014) Curator/Programme Producer at Pallas Projects/Studios
ARC was hugely beneficial for me, giving me the time and space I needed to refocus on both my studio practice and my academic research. I always felt completely supported by Maeve and Sinéad, which was the first time in my life I experienced encouragement within an educational institution. I loved the freedom we had to explore whatever subject area interested us, and everything always seemed totally manageable.
Fiona Harrington (ARC 2021): Artist
My memories are of being supported. I was having an awful time, while going through the course, due to external factors; but the care and encouragement I was shown is what I remember. It came from the top down, and I’m so thankful to have had that time and space, and for the friendships I made as a result.
Nic Flanagan (ARC 2021): Artist and Research Assistant for the Horizon Europe-funded project, CresCine
MESSAGES FOR CURRENT AND FORMER MAVIS/ARC STAFF
Dear Maeve, Sinéad, Niamh O’Malley, Gary Coyle, Finola Jones, Amanda Ralph, and all that contributed to the programme. Thanks for driving progress in all its guises and meanderings. Sad this time has come to pass, but let it live on as urban myths and the steam that drove the machine forward.
Aideen Barry (MAVIS 2006): Artist (Aosdána, ARHA)
My message is to Maeve Connolly: Thank you for being such an amazing lecturer and for your generosity with me as a student. I really valued your teaching, and the breadth of your knowledge has always been an inspiration to me. You are responsible for expanding the art ecology of Ireland and beyond. Thank you for your commitment to your work and for sharing it with us.
Mary Cremin (MAVIS 2007): Head of Programming IMMA
MAVIS has been the single most transformative thing I’ve done in my professional life, and I am deeply grateful and indebted to Maeve and the teaching team at the time for their support, sensitivity and encouragement.
Linda Shevlin (MAVIS 2009): Independent Curator (Formerly Global Partnerships Manager/Meta Open Arts)
Amanda Ralph and Sean Lynch were each very helpful and generous in their involvement, providing real world guidance to arrive at creative solutions. So, simply, thank you!
Darren Caffrey (MAVIS 2013): Artist
To Maeve, Sinéad [Hogan], and David [Beattie]: I just want to say thank you. You’ve made a definite impact on my life, and I look forward to seeing you soon in person. Wishing you nothing but the best.
Nic Flanagan (ARC 2021): Artist and Research Assistant for the Horizon Europe-funded project, CresCine
Barry McHugh is a writer and curator based in County Sligo. This extended article was informed by insights from the MAVIS/ARC alumni and associates, whom we thank for their generous contributions.
78: March – April 2025
‘BogSkin’
Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts
31 January – 20 April 2025
CURATED BY RHA Director, Patrick T. Murphy, ‘BogSkin’ is a major group exhibition which spans 50 years of artistic engagement with the Irish boglands. The work of 20 artists is presented, with their collective output evincing both changing attitudes and lasting affinities. The bog variously represents the romantic, the unknown, and the poetic, just as much as it speaks to climate change and ecological disaster.
In Ireland, conversations about boglands almost always touch on the bog bodies on display at the National Museum. This embodied relationship with the bog forms part of the national psyche, channelling centuries and millennia of slow peat growth, the preservation of human remains, and the labouring hands that have dug it up for fuel. The artistic positions presented in ‘BogSkin’ range from the removed observer (creating abstract responses) and the anthropologist (documenting human life surrounding the boglands) to the scientist (studying minute ecological elements) and the performer (experiencing full bodily immersion).
A large screen shows a video of a wet and black spongy bog, surrounding a pool of red-brown bog water. Specks of white float on the water, which holds the reflection of Nigel Rolfe’s body. Looking down into the pool, but also looking through the screen at the viewer, his body appears upside down. The ripples in the water cause his apparition to flit in and out of distortion,
as if dancing. Rolfe is, however, as still as a statue. He eventually tips slowly towards the water, as his feet sink into the spongy black earth, falling head-first into the bog hole. The sound of the crash fills the gallery, before the artist reemerges, sopping wet.
Robert Ballagh’s painting, The Bogman (1997), is a self-portrait of the artist cutting turf. Some kind of ancient jewel is submerged below his feet, while flying overhead is a raven – the bird of prophecy in Celtic mythology. Camille Souter’s oil painting, The bog, early morning (1963) overlays muted tones of beige, grey, brown, and green, in scenes that show people working or moving. Bold lines scratch away the paint to reveal a blue underlay, evoking the dividing cuts of the sleán, enacting a manmade geometry over the natural landscape.
Barrie Cooke’s Megaceros Hibernicus (1983) depicts the long extinct Irish Elk. The large canvas barely contains the mammoth deer’s body, which is surrounded by matt black, evoking the timeless vacuum experienced by a body cocooned underneath the bog. One imagines a narrative unfolding between these three works: a group working to cut peat; an individual striking a bone; a body, frozen in time for millennia, coming back to this world.
Patrick Hough’s film, The Black River of Herself (2020), gives voice to bodies preserved beneath the bog. “I’m not ready to leave,” says the ghoulish corpse of a woman
to the archeologist excavating her, this exposure to the air affecting her decomposition – a second death. She has wisdom, derived from centuries of observation swathed in peat, and is highly critical of contemporary man’s impact on the environment. “And now a broken bog bleeds carbon…”
These pieces engage with the macabre concept of the ‘revenant’ – a body preserved from the moment of death and brought back to life. However, the chemical makeup of boglands provides not only the ability to sequester bodies, but the efficient absorption and storage of vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Fiona McDonald’s automated sculpture, We Share the Same Air [1.1] (2024), explores the ecological and atmospheric significance of peatlands. Monitored by a CO2 sensor, three transparent chambers are periodically opened and sealed by a central robotic arm, showing how unexcavated green peatlands filter carbon from the air. Conversely, the black, shorn plains of cut bog, actually leak stored carbon back into the atmosphere, producing a stark visualisation of environmental degradation.
Shane Hynan presents photographs from his ongoing series, ‘Beneath | Beofhód’, which observes the raised bogs of the Irish midlands and the culture surrounding them. A large black and white image, titled Recently Rehabilitated Esker Bog with Mount Lucas Wind Farm in the Distance (2023),
portrays the bleak expanse of a ploughed bog, showing a barren, puddle-covered landscape with no traces of wildlife. Until fairly recently, County Offaly was associated with the commercial harvesting of peat by Bord na Móna – a process that permanently ceased in 2021 as the company mobilised its new green energy business plan. In the far distance, an urban skyline features the silhouettes of wind turbines, thus signaling a new beginning in power generation technologies.
Perhaps one of the most well-known works concerning the Irish boglands is Brian O’Doherty’s Rick (1975) – a large-scale assemblage of hand-cut turf, originally installed at the David Hendrick’s Gallery in Dublin. With current awareness of the importance of preserving boglands, the sale of turf was banned by the state under solid fuel regulations in October 2022. It was therefore not possible to recreate O’Doherty’s sculpture for the show; however, photographic documentation of the piece is exhibited as part of ‘BogSkin’. As the boglands are now left to recover after centuries of damaging excavation, it will be interesting to see how artistic relations with this enigmatic landscape continue to evolve.
Ella de Búrca is an artist and Assistant Lecturer at NCAD. elladeburca.com
Brian Maguire ‘La Grande Illusion’
Hugh Lane Gallery
3 October 2024 – 18 May 2025
BRIAN MAGUIRE ROSE to prominence in the 80s and 90s when a trinity of male painters – Patrick Graham, Patrick Hall, and Maguire himself – seemed to dominate the discourse, chiming with the lustre of international neo-expressionism. Hall’s mystical homoeroticism and Graham’s broken self that wrestled with both tradition and his own facility, shared with Maguire personal struggles within the oppressive institutional forces of a post-colonial and post-religion society that was blinking back into the light.
Of the three, Maguire’s art was distinguished by a burning sense of social justice and activism. Analysis at the time noted the masculine nature of the Irish Neo-expressionist wave, with Patricia Hurl’s 2023 exhibition, ‘The Irish Gothic’ at IMMA, providing a welcome corrective to this narrative. Since the 90s, Maguire has steadily painted himself out of the corner of subjective individual expressionism to significantly widen the geopolitical lens. That noted, one could be forgiven for thinking that although Ireland has progressively changed overtime in socio-political terms, Maguire’s worldview remains relentlessly bleak, tracking the shape-shifting nature and impacts of war and oppression, which simply move address.1
Maguire has a track record of shining a light on the vulnerable and voiceless. Depictions of an American soup kitchen or the residents of South American favelas, when housed within the rarefied hallows of blue chip galleries or revered art institutions, could raise reasonable doubts of poverty porn, since art with a social conscience has an uneasy relationship with the capital of artmaking and its ecosystem. However, as Maguire has negotiated a position of being both inside and outside the institution, the authenticity and ethics of his socially engaged practice – working directly with prisoners and acting as a native witness –have been consistent and unwavering.
In relation to the technical and formal painting exhibited in ‘La Grande Illusion’ –which presents works from 2007 onward –Maguire excels through the bravura painterly muscularity on display. The gestural economy, masterly use of space, imposing scale, and judicious understanding of how to maximise pictorial contrast, suggest a painter who has braided the material learning throughout his career, and is now firmly in an imperial phase. Black acrylic is pushed in sweeping, brush-sized movements across the compositional plane, while a largely neutral palette is offset by acid yellows and pinks. Painted un-stretched and then re-stretched during the installation, these works have the epic quality of grand history painting, yet there is enough grit and uncertainty in evidence that they resist falling into territory that is slick or facile for a painter of Maguire’s experience.
The fact that ‘La Grande Illusion’ sits adjacent to the Francis Bacon Studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery neatly serves to highlight some comparisons. Where Bacon’s outlook is somewhat bleak and potentially jaundiced, dealing in historical generalities around the human condition, Maguire’s work, in contrast, is rich in specificity, based
upon his extensive travel research. Police Graduation 2012 (Juárez) (2014) depicts a Mexican police graduation ceremony that has preserved the ritualistic salute of the Nazi regime, a painting that could be easily misunderstood. Maguire’s painting highlights how the ritual of the salute has been revised in world culture yet could move pendulously – Elon Musk’s witless hand gesture, following Trump’s 2025 inauguration, being a case in point.
Certain filmmakers have grappled with the issue of how to speak of the unspeakable. For example, respective depictions of the holocaust in László Nemes’s Son of Saul (2015) and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023) have rigorously strategised around the implicit rather than explicit. Where Nemes provides over the shoulder, fuzzy depth-of-field glimpses of stacked corpses, Glazer’s horrors are heard and not seen in what he compares to the banal ambience of oppression in our lives. Not so in Maguire’s direct and unflinching depictions of decapitated and dismembered body horror in the Arizona desert, which is closer to a Goyaesque Yo Lo Vi / I Saw It.2
All of this may run the risk of recycling images that we have become desensitised to, through bottomless doomscrolling of our daily news feeds. The aestheticisation of human suffering is an additional potential pitfall for a painter of Maguire’s technical virtuosity; that the artist deftly navigates these slopes is a testament to the empathy and compassion that underpins his methods of looking. As a visitor to ‘La Grande Illusion’, I found the paintings powerful and moving. I experienced a confounding shock that jolted me to consider how such images are received – something we have become numb to, in an image-saturated, digital era. It is this direct encounter with the visual record of war that raises viewer consciousness and allows a chink of light into Maguire’s otherwise bleak vision. This exhibition celebrates a leading Irish artist, working at the peak of his oeuvre.
Colin Martin is an artist and Head of School RHA. @colinmartin81
1 Brian Maguire, ‘War Changes Its Address: The Aleppo Paintings’, Irish Museum of Modern Art (26 January – 7 May 2018).
2 Francisco Goya, Yo Lo Vi / I Saw It, Plate 44, ‘Desastres de la Guerra / The Disasters of War’(1810-20).
‘Bodies’
Waterford Gallery of Art
5 December 2024 – 5 April 2025
IN THE PUBLIC imagination, museum collections often summon up dusty places that are cloistered and devoid of relevance. However, since the turn of the century, there has been a push to place the museum at the centre of an increasingly fluid community – a shift which has become more urgent since the pandemic, with the collection at the vital heart of this new role.
While many cultural institutions lag behind in this regard, The Waterford Art Collection, housed in Waterford Gallery of Art, is a shining exception. One of the oldest municipal collections of art in Ireland, it comprises over 700 works by artists including Paul Henry, Jack B. Yeats RHA, Louis le Brocquy, Evie Hone, Mary Swanzy, and George Russell (using the pseudonym AE), as well as a growing number of contemporary works. It is overseen by Visual Arts Co-ordinator, Luke Currall, who has extensive experience in the UK, including a stint at The Wellcome Collection in London. Currall believes that the collection must “remain a living, developing, relevant resource, not just a time capsule of historic, innovative and ambitious ideals within Waterford’s past.”
The outfitting of the two-storey gallery in 2019 was overseen by Waterford County Council Arts Office and Rojo Studios Architects with collection consul- tation from Dr Éimear O’Connor. Using a system of movable walls, the space has a contemporary feel, while preserving many of the building’s nineteenth-century classical features. Currently showing until 5 April in the upstairs gallery space, ‘Bodies’ presents works from the collection alongside new commissions, inspired by the human form. The skilful use of a familiar theme to surprise and beguile is characteristic of Currall’s curatorial approach.
For instance, while Nude Study (c.1918) by Mainie Jellett nods to Susan Connolly’s solo exhibition, ‘GROUND (two-unfold)’ – a riff on Jellett’s cubist work, which runs concurrently downstairs – it is a lively, figurative work, rather than a cubist piece. Similarly, placing James Joseph Power’s bronze of a famine-era couple, Gorta Mór (1961), beside Áine Ryan’s contem-
porary sculpture, Implements (2021) – a disembodied glass hand on a rusted pitchfork – brackets a space in which rural histories might be reimagined.
Many artists here were active on the wider political and cultural scene. William Orpen – whose Nude Study (n.d.) is a tutorial in drawing – was an official Great War artist. Another of his sketches depicts Irish Free State Senator, Oliver St John Gogarty. Mainie Jellett and Father Jack P Hanlon (Nude Study, n.d.) were two of the founders of The Irish Living Art Exhibition (IELA) in 1943, while Conn McCluskey, represented here by the sculpture Untitled (1960), founded the Homeless Citizens’ League in 1963 and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in 1967. This exhibition launched Una Sealy’s huge new portrait, commissioned by the OPW and WCC, of Dr Mary Strangman – public health advocate, suffragette, and the first female member of Waterford City Council –which holds a central position in the gallery. Reclining Nude (n.d.) by artist and curator Mary Grehan (who, incidentally, played Strangman in a recent local production) hangs nearby. Notably, the collection has a considerable number of works by female artists, which Currall is committed to building upon.
There are international links too. Women in Conversation (1953) by Stella Steyn (an Irish-born artist of Russian extraction) recalls the monumentality of Picasso’s Two Women Running on a Beach (1922) but has a vibrance and lightness all of its own. Elsewhere, a watercolour by Niccolo d’Ardia Caracciolo, titled Nude Study (n.d.), reflects the artist’s mixed heritage. A member of the RHA, Caracciolo was born to a Waterford mother and Italian father and grew up in Waterford Castle. He died in a motorbike accident in Italy in 1989 aged 48.
Local and contemporary artists also feature in the show. Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist (1981) is a beautifully executed parody – one that subverts the title of James Joyce’s second novel, while mirroring the composition of Rembrandt’s figurative painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) – by Waterford
artist Pat O’Brien, the subject of the dissection. The medical students, tutors from WRTC (now SETU), will be recognisable to generations of Waterford art students, now scattered across the world. Alongside, Anthony Hayes’s Gladiators (2014), groins shielded by game controllers, crowd forward, their thrust offsetting Cuán Cusack’s You in Blue (2024) – cyanotypes and poems about dysphoria, floating on organza nearby.
Eamon Grey and James Horan’s This Little Piggy Went to Market (2023), holds such ambiguity within. A pair of feet, carved from Carrera marble, from which white bones comically jut, balance on pink stilts, sunk in a heap of white gravel. Sadly, Grey did not live to see the work complete, having died in 2022, but this sculptural installation, which provides a literal and figurative frame for the show, also suggests the possibility of moving forward with verve and zest. An alternative cipher, a terracotta nude, sits opposite, curled like a cat. The artist is ‘anon’ – a reminder that beauty lives on and belongs to all.
An effective and engaging exhibition, ‘Bodies’ exemplifies the new ideal of the municipal art collection as a tool to variously reach, inspire, reflect, and support its communities. The museum collection also acts as a repository of sorts, helping to bring history to life by providing tangible connections to stories of local, national, and international significance. However, collections need careful management, resources, and expertise to reach their full potential, since there is an expectation of durational care among those who donate artefacts. Currall’s presence has therefore been a game changer for the Waterford Art Collection, and it will be of national interest to see where he guides it.
Clare Scott is an artist and writer based in Waterford who recently completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Practice and Management at Ulster University. clarescott.ie
Michael Wann, ‘The Old Grieving Fields’ Solomon Fine Art
6 February – 1 March 2025
A STRIKING QUALITY of the landscapes featured in ‘The Old Grieving Fields’, apart from the Sligo-based artist’s clear aptitude for drawing, is the role played by many of their supports. Standing in front of an artwork, it is common to absorb content without conscious regard for the material upon which it has been created. But, here, the supports invite greater attention.
Sometimes remote, sometimes immersive, the 38 depicted scenes are arranged in clusters with common features that, together, proffer diversity in perspective and scale. They emit an air of disquiet, of things in flux yet somehow timeless. This is partly due to Wann’s use of charcoal, derived from his copying of black-and-white photos from newspapers as a child.1 Working from darks to lights through erasure and reinforcement, he achieves a wide tonal and mark-making range, disrupted by occasional colourful elements.
The largest group, 20 tray-framed works on panel from 2024, represent a recent development within his practice. Applying charcoal direct to wood requires careful handling, and the results remain both crisply detailed and sensitively atmospheric. Warmth from the wood glows through, its grain contributing to the imagery. Each is composed of three-quarters sky, one-quarter aerial view of the terrain below, and hints of danger from natural phenomena or human intervention.
While Deep Dark Night features a pitchblack firmament, dark, lightly textured ocean, and softly lit horizon, Eclipse reserves the blackest black for the titular phenomenon, ringed by crepuscular rays. Its printlike feel derives from the wood grain, which also reads as clouds, while the patterning in Murmuration enhances the dynamism of a formation cohering in flight above a tracery of fields. Omens (Crows Arriving) obliterates other elements with an all-over, chaotic scattering of birds, their portentous blackness exuding a sense of menace.
People rarely feature in Wann’s landscapes, yet human intrusion is implied by the intriguing visualisations Balloons and Recon; the first features hot-air inflatables, the second a squadron of helicopters. Consequence from human activity is suggested by Controlled Explosion and Footprints, the latter foregrounding a passenger jet to reference carbon-dioxide excess. All seem emblematic of the impacts of needlessly induced crises, including climate change.
Opposite, are large drawings on Fabriano supports, collaged together from smaller pieces. The resulting patchworks in Aerial 1-6 (2024) create an uneven surface that traps or resists the medium, depending on the direction of travel. Wann senses they may reenact his experience of being adopted and later piecing together his family history. Some years ago, he was taken up in a small aircraft over County Carlow by a half-brother, who pointed out the farm where his birth father had lived. The photos he took combined with memory and creative processes to inform the series.
Aerial 6, The Bloodline of the Fields, directly references that encounter, the red lines that define gaps in the assemblage emulating a family tree. Aerial 3, Night Visions
takes it into a dream world where the artist experienced a vision of the fields his father worked being on fire.2 Here, and in other exhibits, he overwrote in red the Fabriano watermark, inviting attention to the artifice of his creations and establishing a tension with the interior acts of drawing out that produced them.
Possibly referencing the role certified records play in authenticating a person’s identity, other devices used to mark works as ‘documentation’ include a ‘rejected’ stamp in Aerial 3, Night Visions and official ‘seals’ in Approved Landscape #1 and #2 (both 2024). In Landscape on Fire (2023), inspired by news that the Amazon rainforest was in flames, Wann includes an ornate trompe-l’oeil frame, reflecting his desire to talk about imagery and how we look at it.3
Described as a “lament to a landscape in distress,” ‘The Old Grieving Fields’ reflects our constructive impulses and the impacts of our destruction – including the lost potential of unadulterated nature.4 Although Wann prefers that his work not be defined by biography, his drawings impress as a form of working through, and this, above all, gives them deep resonance.5
Susan Campbell is a visual arts writer, art historian and artist. susancampbellartwork.com.
1 Michael Wann interview, The Artist’s Well, 8 February 2025 (youtube.com).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Exhibition Press Release, Solomon Fine Art.
5 Michael Wann interview, The Artist’s Well, 8 February 2025 (youtube.com).
MCSWEENEY OUTLINES THE CURRENT SHOW AT AN TÁIN ARTS CENTRE AMONG OTHER ACTIVITIES IN DUNDALK.
JUST ONE HOUR from Dublin and Belfast lies Dundalk – a town I often passed by train but never visited, until I participated in the Creative Spark Artist-in-Residence Programme from February to April 2023. Creative Spark is a centre for creativity and innovation in Dundalk (creativespark.ie). It offers an array of facilities for visual artists, including a FAB LAB, print studio, kiln room, and a soon-to-be-opened darkroom. There are also a number of courses and workshops offered in these areas. Among these facilities are several local creative businesses, each having their own office or workspace. I had never encountered such a collaborative hub of creativity in Ireland before. One of the best parts is a communal kitchen, where everyone has lunch together.
From the outset, I felt immersed in the visual arts community at Creative Spark. Gráinne Murphy, the print studio manager, introduced me to several artists working in Dundalk. One afternoon, we visited Bó Studios, an artist workspace established in 2020 and supported by An Táin Arts Centre, The Arts Council of Ireland and Louth County Council. When I first visited, there were four artists in the studio; since then, it has expanded to provide spaces for ten professional artists, a pop-up gallery space, and a larger workshop or display space. The ten artists currently operating out of this studio are Etaoin O’Reilly, David Callan, Bláthnaid McClean, John Connolly, Ste- phen Hurley, Linda McConville, Úna Curley, Julie Corcoran, Gráinne Murphy, and Jenny Slater.
I am delighted to have been invited back to Dundalk this year to curate the Bó Studios group exhibition, ‘Oneiric’, at An Táin Arts Centre (28 February to 29 March). Relating to or suggestive of dreaming, ‘Oneiric’ explores the liminal space between dreams and reality. Each of the ten artists is presenting new works using diverse mediums including ceramics, print, photography, illustration, mixed media, and textiles.
Etaoin O’Reilly presents a series of ceramic works exploring the dream of one’s teeth falling out. David Callan’s sculpture is inspired by the classical pastoral painting, The Arcadian Shepherds (1637-38) by Nicolas Poussin, and reflects dystopian ruins, present in his own recurring dreamscapes. Bláithnaid McClean has constructed otherworldly bioplastic pieces, influenced by our ancestors’ relationship with bees.
John Connolly is showcasing an altered readymade installation, inspired by the surrealist movement and alternative universes.
Stephen Hurling’s works depict an intricate dreamworld, influenced by the kind of vivid dreams one may experience after ingesting dairy products. Linda McConville’s playful paintings are inspired by her own memories of the Únapast.Curley’s works on wooden panels explore a dream in which she embodies a confident horse, while Julie Corcoran’s cyanotypes examine the world through the lens
of a butterfly and are inspired by the work, One and Three Chairs (1965), by American conceptual artist, Joseph Kosuth.
Created with materials sourced from nature, Gráinne Murphy’s prints capture the magical time in the early morning, when the veil between worlds is thinnest. Finally, Jenny Slater reflects on the myths and dreams surrounding motherhood through soft sculptures.
I feel lucky to be able to return and reconnect with this vibrant artist community and to witness how Dundalk continues to grow and thrive as a hub for visual arts.
An Táin Arts Centre offers many opportunities to artists – including the Emerging Visual Artist in Residence Award and the Creative Residency Programme – and regularly hosts exhibitions by both local and national artists in its basement gallery.
Dundalk is also home to Bridge Street Studios, which houses nine artists, a workshop space, a gallery and shop (bridgestreetstudios.com). Another notable collective is AAEX (Art As Exchange), a group of visual artists supported by Creative Spark. They meet every two weeks to collaborate, share ideas, and develop community-focused projects (aaex.artspark.ie).
Walking through the streets of Dundalk there are also countless street murals that have mostly been created through the SEEK Urban Arts Festival, which was established in 2019. Each year, professional street artists are invited to create large-scale murals, illustrating key figures or moments from Dundalk’s history and heritage. There is also a useful map on the SEEK website, showing the locations of the murals, which can inform a self-guided tour (seekdundalk. ie). One of my favourites is the mural of Harry Tempest by Portuguese artist, Mariana Duarte Santos.
Clara McSweeney is a curator and artist from Cork, currently based Dublin. She recently completed an MA in Art and Research Collaboration at IADT. She was the ARC-LAB Curatorial Scholar for 2023/2024, which will culminate with the exhibition ‘Liquid Urbanisms’ at The LAB Gallery (13 March – 24 April 2025). dublincityartsoffice.ie
‘Oneiric by Bó Studios’ continues at An Táin Arts Centre until 29 March. antain.ie
‘Irish Art Now’ was an artist-led initiative at the Embassy of Ireland in London, bringing together artists, curators, and art professionals to celebrate the impact of Irish artists in London and beyond. The initiative included a public exhibition, which ran from 8 to 28 January, an official launch event, a panel discussion, and a printed catalogue. It featured 14 artists at different stages of their careers, from recent graduates to established practitioners, showcasing work across sculpture, painting, and printmaking.
We had not met before this project, but as curators, our aims were closely aligned. We had separately approached the Embassy of Ireland with similar ideas and were introduced, leading to this collaboration. Orla, a recent Royal College of Art graduate, was acutely aware of the challenges early-career artists face in gaining visibility, and proposed a group show, featuring recent Irish graduates, who had either moved to London to study, or relocated after their studies in Ireland. Conversely, Joe’s approach to the embassy was rooted in acknowledging and celebrating contemporary Irish visual artists and art professionals who have spent years, sometimes decades, quietly establishing themselves in London and wanted to bring all these people together in one room, creating a space for recognition, exchange, and connection.
More Than Just an Exhibition
‘Irish Art Now’ was conceived as a landmark event to celebrate the contributions of Irish artists and foster new connections. The last significant survey of UK-based Irish artists took place over 25 years ago with ‘0044: Contemporary Irish Artists in Britain’ at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (20 June – 13 September 1999), curated by Peter Murray, which later travelled to Crawford Art Gallery. For us, a renewed focus was necessary – not only to high-
light contemporary Irish artists, but also to acknowledge their substantial influence on British culture.
Given limitations of time, logistics, and funding, we decided to select artists who have made London their creative base. The quality of Irish artists working in London meant that many more could have been included, but space constraints required a careful selection. The entire process, from conception to opening, was completed in under three months. This included conducting research, contacting artists, building a mailing list, liaising with the embassy and galleries, arranging panelists, and organising the collection, delivery, and installation of artwork. We also designed and secured sponsorship for a catalogue.
The Irish Embassy in London provided a fitting and symbolic setting – an extension of home that acknowledges Irish identity and amplifies its creative influence internationally. A late Victorian Grade II listed mansion with grand proportions and an opulent French Renaissance style, it has been a vital space for Irish representation in the UK since 1949. However, this was the first time a contemporary visual art exhibition of this scale had been staged there. The listed status of the building required us to use existing hanging points and find creative solutions. As a working space with over 50 staff, logistical challenges had to be carefully managed.
The exhibition presented a broad spectrum of creative approaches and perspectives that reflect both Irish cultural narratives and engage with wider global discourses. Richard Malone’s textile sculpture explores queerness and class, while Yuri Pattison’s work examines the relationship between the digital economy and visual culture. Oisín Byrne’s painting presents a pop-inspired portrait, Eva Rothschild’s minimalist sculpture
explores art’s relationship with materials, while Laura Ní Fhlaibhín’s sculptures engage with ancestry and care. Emmet Kierans’s paintings reveal the imprint of popular films on the psyche. Through the interplay of light, colour, and material, Eve O’Callaghan’s works refine painting to its essence. Anne Ryan’s collage paintings distil London’s energy through its people in motion. Kathy Prendergast’s reworked maps reinterpret geographic expressions of power, Kerri McEvoy’s redacted book critiques gendered violence, and Aislinn F’s illustrations, centring Black women, question contemporary Irish identity. As artists, our individual practices reflect different concerns. Orla’s works on paper explore Irish archival narratives of the diaspora, while Joe’s sculptures interrogate meaning through form. Together, the presented works resisted a singular narrative, instead raising a multiplicity of artistic concerns, shaped by identity, power structures, and the impact of technology. As Dr Fionna Barber noted in her essay for the exhibition catalogue: “In short, it is impossible to pigeonhole contemporary Irish art in London into one category.”
The launch event on 13 January was distinct from a standard private view. Alongside the exhibition, it aimed to forge networks and strengthen cultural ties. Attended by 150 invited artists, curators, and art professionals, it also marked a moment of recognition for these guests and their professional achievements, many of whom hadn’t visited the embassy before. Ambassador Martin Fraser welcomed the gathering, acknowledging in his opening speech the role of Irish artists in shaping the cultural landscape of their adopted home and strengthening bilateral relationships. Actor Adrian Dunbar, our invited speaker, reflected on the transformative potential of encountering art early in life and the importance of this initiative.
A panel discussion on 21 January, featuring Dr Fionna Barber, Helen Carey, Emma Goltz, and Mark O’Gorman, examined the significant challenges of sustaining an artistic practice in London while maintaining professional ties with Ireland. The discussion explored the limited institutional support for Irish arts in the UK, the complexities of Irish identity in a post-Brexit Britain, and the broader implications of cross-border cultural exchange. The discussion brought forth strong insights and critical perspectives from both panelists and attendees. The conversation underscored the urgency of these issues, highlighting the need for continued dialogue and concrete solutions.
To further amplify ‘Irish Art Now’, we produced a catalogue to serve as a record of the exhibition, participating artists, and curatorial vision. Funding was provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland and sponsorship from The Doyle Collection, while the support of Ambassador Martin Fraser and the Embassy of Ireland staff was invaluable. However, above all, this initiative was made possible by the generosity of the exhibiting artists.
Looking ahead, it would be valuable to see Irish state buildings abroad used more widely as spaces for contemporary visual art. Building on the momentum of ‘Irish Art Now’, we are actively exploring ways to expand this initiative into a larger survey of Irish artists, with discussions underway for a future presentation at a major London institution. If you have insights or wish to support this growing initiative, we welcome your engagement – please get in touch with us.
Orla Jackson and Joe Duggan are Irish artists based in London.
mail@orlajackson.co.uk
joe@joeduggan.co.uk
The White Pube
Particular Books, 2024, 320 pp.
POOR ARTISTS BY The White Pube, the collaborative identity of Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente, is a compelling object. Its flamingo pink cover is a flamboyant addition to my bookcase. The London and Liverpool-based critics have been writing bombastic online criticism, filled with emojis, abbreviations, and feelings, since 2015 and graciously, this content has largely been free for readers to consume. Following nine years of producing weekly blog posts, reflecting on exhibitions, art institutions, and visual culture more broadly, the pair have published their first book with Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin. Poor Artists is a material translation of the online community they have earnestly created, capturing the agitator spirit they have come to represent for their readership.
The book narrates the endeavours of fictional art school graduate, Quest Talukdar, as they attempt to pursue a career as an artist after college. The difficulties of maintaining a creative life under capitalism are made immediately apparent to the protagonist. Grappling with the divide between the positives of art education and its frustrating incompatibility with societal structures, The White Pube expresses a similar criticism put forward by Claire-Louise Bennett in her novel, Checkout19 (Penguin
Random House, 2021) which portrays the empty promises of the schooling system for working-class children. The core tension of Poor Artists – how we can live with art in our lives – remains largely unresolved, but I take some comfort in the fact that the protagonist ultimately decides to continue life as an artist, in spite of countless obstacles, and is buoyed by their reimagining of ‘success’ as simply being able to ‘make’.
The overt naming of the protagonist ‘Quest’ is one of many examples of the writers’ playful and expanded approach to criticism, which straddles different literary genres. The book is at times a memoir, with Quest an amalgamation of the authors’ own backgrounds, while also embracing fantasy and fiction, complete with tropes of quest-narratives, including a knight and king. A particularly enjoyable sequence analyses the role of art school in the development of criticality, with a surreal depiction of the head of the college as a pile of discarded artworks that its students have progressed through. At times, the writers eschew formalism altogether and embrace the polemical, with character monologues espousing opinions on topical conversations, from abelism to anarchism. The book is informed by interviews, conducted with anonymised individuals, artists, cura-
tors and gallerists, and this construction is evident in the strong opinions of different characters.
A critique levelled at Poor Artists by ArtReview suggests that publishing with a mainstream press like Penguin undercuts the book’s articulation of anarchist ideals.1 This seems misguided, given that we operate within particular power structures, and publishing is a method of disseminating ideas that can be activated. It is perhaps more productive to consider what it means to have this strange book – a hybrid of different writing styles – accepted by conventional media. Muhammad and de la Puente are both art school graduates, and while this is a well-established career path for many critics, I am intrigued by the creativity of this book.
The dematerialisation of the art object, as prognosed by Lucy Lippard in the 1970s, did not blanketly occur. However, Poor Artists highlights financial situations in determining the pursuit of material-focused or ‘dematerialised’ practices (de la Puente’s college loans are cited in footnotes throughout the narrative).
Oscar Wilde’s The Critic as Artist (1891) was an early originator of the school of thought that viewed criticism as an art form in and of itself, describing it as a “record of
one’s own soul.” Poor Artists adopts this idea wholly by creating its own form and rationale. For many reasons, the fields of art writing and creative criticism have seen renewed interest in recent years. The general distribution of this book platforms these timely modes of creative expression for broader readerships to engage with and experience.
By converting the dominant ideas, discussed on their website and media channels, into the materiality of a book, The White Pube has created a talisman, a record of collective discordance with the opportunities for pursuing a life with art. In a way, the most appropriate review of this book would be to survey an array of practitioners – the eponymous ‘poor artists’ that the book seeks to champion and address. The interviews that inform the book demonstrate The White Pube’s community-oriented approach to criticism, with Poor Artists reaffirming their allegiance to their readership and the makers of the world.
Sarah Long is an artist and writer based in Cork.
sarahlongartist.com
1 Rosanna McLaughlin, ‘‘Poor Artists’ by Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad, Reviewed’, ArtReview, October 2024.
RACHEL O’DWYER
ON SATURDAY 1 February, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios hosted ‘Artworld Reputation in the Digital Age’, organised by Tommie Soro, a postdoctoral researcher at TU Dublin. The event explored how structures governing reputation are transforming, with talks and discussion by invited academics and theorists Gregory Sholette, Mick Wilson, Bill Deresiewicz, and Andrea Phillips.
In the artworld, reputation isn’t only about whether people like an artist’s work; it’s about who likes it, where it’s seen, and what kind of power those people and places have. The artworld runs on a reputational currency made up of galleries, critics, collectors and institutions. This is Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social capital. An artist might be unknown to the general public but cherished in certain circles because their work is shown in the right spaces or aligns with current trends. Similarly, an artist with mass appeal – a street or NFT artist, say – might struggle for legitimacy because they lack the ‘right’ credentials.
The reputational economy and the market economy are entwined in the artworld, but not in obvious ways. A buyer can work to turn ‘new money’ into prestige (and this is partly why the newly wealthy acquire art) but, as Mick Wilson remarked, it’s not as simple as walking into a blue-chip gallery and saying: “I want the yellow one.” On the other side of the equation, cultural clout can translate to economic success for an emerging artist, but this process is also murky, and more so in the era of online likes and follows.
Gregory Sholette, known for his book, Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (Pluto Press, 2011), argued that the majority of those who work in the artworld – artists, gallerists, mediators, installers, exhibition goers, and art students – have little institutional power. Nonetheless, they form the invisible bulk that keeps this economy afloat.
Phillips and Wilson both explored the rise of art as an asset class. In light of the financialisation of art (and perhaps contra Sholette’s theories of Dark Matter), Phillips spoke about the decline of the gallery and public museum as sites where reputation is made. Because the art market is now embroiled in the dealings of uber-wealthy buyers (known as Ultra-High-Net-Worth-Individuals) whose freeport riches may never see the light of day, there’s less need for public viewers to sustain reputation or market value.
Bill Deresiewicz traced the artist’s evolution from craftsperson to entrepreneur. Drawing on numerous interviews with creatives for his book, The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech (Henry Holt and Co., 2020), Deresiewicz found that even ‘successful’ artists now struggle to earn a living. Digital platforms like Spotify and Amazon dominate commercial paths,
while self-promotion and financial pressures force artists into increasingly entrepreneurial roles.
As Deresiewicz pointed out, young artists are now expected to profile their work online. But it’s unclear if an online presence translates into artworld prestige or success.
Drawing on his interviews with key stakeholders, like museum directors and curators, the organiser, Tommie Soro, suggested that some have managed to translate online success into reputation (though it’s unclear if this trend will continue).
Soro is an academic researcher, but he’s also an artist. The speakers are also in the artworld; but while the roundtable has social and reputational capital in the artworld, Soro tells us that he is part of the 99% of artists who struggle to make it for lack of reputational clout. He’s not interested in why rich artists are successful, he says, but in why unsuccessful artists are not.
“Do you feel sorry for people who buy lottery tickets?” Wilson asks in an undertone.
“The reason they’re not [rich] isn’t because
they’re not good artists” Soro says. “It’s the reputational system that has to be exploded.”
The roundtable on the whole were sceptical of this claim. Soro spoke about art as a space where meaning might still be found beyond drudge work, if only artists didn’t have to spend their time worrying about how to pay the rent or game the algorithm.
“Who the f**k do these artists think they are?” Andrea Phillips asked, visibly irritated, “I see no reason why artists should be given the right to imagine material freedom while other people deliver the post. You’re falling into a trap. You’re romanticising it.”
“The artists I work alongside,” she continued, “they don’t consider what they do to be any more valuable or special than any other worker.” “Yeah.” Sorro countered a little wearily. “They say that.”
Unlike many social exchanges in the artworld – gallery opening niceties, heated debates around a readymade, objective studio critiques in art school – this conversation is fascinating. Speakers and attendees
really want to know what is at stake when we talk about this thing called reputation. Why are artists so poor? Does being entrepreneurial mean you’re a sell out? Are art colleges oversubscribed? But it’s also a bit tense. Soro is an academic, but he’s also an artist, presumably struggling to make a living from government grants like the one funding this discussion. The stakes are real. There’s also a power imbalance, and it’s not built on money; it’s built on all the currencies that Bourdieu liked to write about –linguistic, social, and cultural capital. Under these circumstances, it might be hard for Soro to take a detached approach to the question of reputation in the artworld. But then again, it may have been hard for anyone in the room to do so with any objectivity.
Rachel O’Dwyer is a writer and a lecturer in digital cultures at NCAD. rachelodwyer.com
I AM A visual artist and educator whose practice incorporates socially engaged projects, environmental awareness projects, and public art projects. I create sculptural installations and interventions to explore ideas with communities and within the gallery space. A recurrent theme in my work focuses on voices of the silenced and the non-human, exploring how they might have agency in memory and history.
Exploring geology, the history of materials, and the circular economy, my current work concentrates on lithics, minerals, and mining. I examine rocks and minerals from various international locations, through a situated, land-based practice. Increasingly, my work engages processes of making, informed by my earlier training as a jewellery-maker and sculptor. I create artworks that convey the complexities of deep time, visible in materials.
I want to reveal fundamental and invisible forces and energies, explored by scientists and experts alike; these concepts are central to my practice. Works such as Microns 1 & 2 (2024) have used scientific technology to reveal the geomythologies we inhabit and host. Taking the form of large, printed banners, these works feature electron micrographs of river clay samples, depicting metal pollution. Geologist Dr Tim Newman sourced clay samples and other geological strata for me, from the site of the River Thames Tideway project, where the Super Sewer construction is situated. I then took these samples to Innes Clatworthy, Electron Microscopist in the Imaging and Analysis Core Research Laboratories in The Natural History Museum in London, and we used an electron microscope to create the Electron Micrographs, with the spherules of iron oxide silicates pushing out of the clay. The banners were exhibited in ‘When We Cease to Understand the World’,
by Marysia Więckiewicz-Carroll
28 July 2024).
Another work exploring scientific analysis was Mountain Mapping (2024), exhibited in my solo show ‘To the Mountain’ at Leitrim Sculpture Centre (30 August – 21 September 2024). Three local mountains (Benbo, Slieve League, and Iron) were 3D-printed from digital contour maps and mounted on surveyor’s tripods, painted gold for tuning and communing with the earth’s magnetism. The work incorporates geological specimens from each of the mountains: Iron Nodule, Paragneiss and Quartzite. The suspended rocks demonstrate a simple geological experiment to determine ‘specific gravity’.
‘To the Mountain’ exhibition was the outcome of my three-month residency at Leitrim Sculpture Centre, exploring the mapping of mountains. The mapping of Ireland was developed by the early Ordnance Survey (OS) in 1824 to facilitate taxation and the ‘underground potential’ of geological and material value. The mapping was done by creating a series of primary triangles; sightings were taken between stations using theodolites on top of selected mountains. This, and my question, ‘Do Mountains commune with us?’ inspired the fabrication of artworks in the show. Many of these works were informed by my research into magnetism, Earth Sciences and measurement, geological phenomena, and experiments in the field. The exhibition asked: How can we shift away from over-mining and endless extraction of the Earth’s minerals towards a circular economy?
The work, Mount Ida (2024), conjures the magical and mythical, whilst attempting to comprehend the mystery of magnetism and its name-origin. A pair of traditional Greek shoes, known as tsarouchi, are cast in iron and attached to a strong welding magnet. This work was inspired by the myth of Magnes, associated with a shepherd, reputedly the first to notice magnetism, when his shoes got stuck to lodestone/ magnetite on the ground at Mount Ida. It was also informed by time spent exploring the magnetic cores of Iceland. I visited a geological drill core archive in East Iceland and documented the magnetic power of the cores with very strong magnets (neodymium).
I am intrigued by alchemical changes in metals, minerals, and spirituality. Materials and matter have an ancient importance as Prima Materia. Using metal and stone supports these interests, because the materials are always changing and breathing. This is important to my understanding of deep time. Cast in Jesmonite with black stone-shungite pigments, my snake sculpture, The Keeper (2021), holds the secrets of stones and guards the thresholds. It was exhibited in ‘Hivernal’, curated by Eamonn Maxwell at Roscommon Arts Centre (1 November – 21 December 2024).
Cast in pigmented Jesmonite with gold, shungite and iron oxide, the work Mineral Mountain (2024) was an attempt to commune with the sacred elements within mountains and rocks. The mountain sculptures are inspired by geodata forms of the Iron Mountain in Leitrim. Rocks, metals and plants are ground up to become homoeopathic and offer healing: shungite (for protection), gold (representing the sun, and a vital element in balancing energies) and dragon blood powder (to neutralise negative energies).
My solo exhibition ‘To the Mountain’ at Leitrim Sculpture Centre (30 August – 21 September 2024) considered how we commune with the Earth, its divinity, scientific knowledge, and colonial histories to explore alchemical traits and forms. I was subsequently awarded a six-month Artist Studios Residency (from August 2025 to January 2026) at The Model in Sligo. My forthcoming show, ‘Material Acts’, will run from 11 to 27 September at Pallas Projects/Studios, as part of the Artist-Initiated Projects programme for 2025. ‘Material Acts’ will present a sculptural investigation relating to geology, alchemical changes, and environmental colonialism.
Kathryn Maguire is an artist based in Sligo. kathrynmaguire.net
IT HAD BEEN 16 years since Louise Cherry’s last solo show, ‘You, you and me’ in Studio 6 at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, when she pitched a new body of work to Signal Arts Centre. ‘All That’s Left of You in Me’ began as a proposal “to collaborate with my father again,” and with the artist’s feeling that she needed to return to making more conceptual work – something she had not done since her graduate photography won critical and international acclaim in the early 2000s, and since building a remarkable, temporary, decaying, suspended sculpture, held together by weight and balance, in TBG+S in 2008.
Cherry’s father Robin died in 2009 after a long illness with Parkinson’s disease. He had wanted to be a painter but became an architect instead. Cherry, now a self-taught abstract painter, joined life drawing classes to follow in his figurative style, but found that what brought her closer to him was not the figures she was drawing but a more tac-
tile, object-memory-based connection: the blades used to sharpen her pencils, putty rubbers. She pulled out art books her father had owned, including one of Rodin’s erotica, and books she had as an art student in Dublin. She started thinking again about the nude, the male gaze, representations of the female body. Suddenly the project was no longer about collaboration with her father. “He began to leave the studio,” she says. “I gave myself permission to do something different and that’s when I started playing.”
She began making cutouts of famous nudes in art, including those featured in iconic works by Tracey Emin and Lynda Benglis. She started thinking about cyberporn and the sexually explicit digital landscape that is part of the visual culture for twenty-first-century teenagers, including her own, and how that might relate to a culture of artworld nudes, which is part of hers.
The works that have emerged owe a debt to all that has come before, including Cherry’s own experiences in life and as an artist. Treating nude figures as cartoon-like silhouettes, she began incorporating the body as a negative space. Referencing childhood fables, games and nursery rhymes in some of her titles, she started to unravel the disconnect between child and adult understanding. Taking an instinctive approach, she also began working to find a fruitful meeting point between figurative and abstract representation in her painting. There is violence in the painterly gestures that carry the composition in Throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater (2023), with its tumbling bodies and the unchecked busyness of each brushstroke. This is layered work, intuitive in its use of colour, physical in its making, imbued with the energy that prompted its origins. A series of small circular paintings, My Three Graces (2024), show nude figures trapped behind a network of lines.
She pairs language with image in a trio of oil paintings with the titles, The Slow Death of the Artist (2023), The Digital Nanny Does It Again (2024), and The Garden of Confusion (2024), painted onto the canvas in pink. The first could be about Cherry, her father, her relationship with her father, or her relationship with herself or her art. This artist is working her way into the messy thickets of memory and connection and painting to find her path out. Figures hover
behind the plant-fronds in I Promise the Sky Isn’t Falling Down (2023). It is as though a forlorn and broken seated figure is being visited by an angel, wings wide in comforting embrace, in the middle of a jungle of sensory overload, where finger-like branches resemble red veins and bloodlines (with visual echoes of the work of Frida Kahlo, who is referenced elsewhere in the show).
Technically, the tension between the female body and the world it occupies seems potentially resolved in a series of small collaged and painted works: Falling –Self-portrait as a Life Drawing I, II, III and IV (2024). But Cherry is working out big themes at large scale too. At a metre and a half wide, Perfecting the Art of Catfishing (2024) has no nude cutout figures and seems to point towards a narrowing of the conflict between abstraction and representation. It’s a muscular painting, an unapologetic one, and it contains much of what she has been working to unravel in and through this new body of work. “There’s a whole world in there underneath that black,” she says.
First shown at Signal Arts Centre, Bray, last summer, Louise Cherry’s solo exhibition, ‘All That’s Left of You in Me’, continues at An Chéad Tine Art Gallery in Kilkenny until 25 March (an-chead-tine. com).
Cristín Leach is a writer, art critic, and broadcaster based in Cork. cristinleach.com
LAURENCE O’TOOLE OUTLINES HIS PUBLIC ARTWORK COMMISSIONED BY
RICHMOND HOMES FOR SANDYFORD INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.
AT 3PM ON 16 May 2024, the final nut was torqued down on the baseplate of my first large-scale outdoor sculpture commission. The Presence of Absence (2024) was the culmination of three years of work that negotiated the combined hurdles of Covid-19 restrictions, a very tight budget, and massive price hikes in materials.
The kernel of this concept originated in 2018 during my MA in Art and Process at Crawford College of Art and Design. It stemmed from a premise I developed while researching artistic responses to cosmological phenomena, in particular the photographic work of Trevor Paglen – that of a ‘footprint’, or the depiction of an absence. I became interested in the evidence of the unseen, much like the gravitational effects
on ordinary matter that infers the presence of dark matter, the suggestion of something hidden and the anxiety that manifests from these traces. Formally, I was inspired by images of nebulae and the high-speed photography of atomic tests.
The representation of unseen forces has become a recurring theme in my practice, be they physical or metaphysical. The Presence of Absence considers externalities, the outside or hidden energies that impact upon our environment and our collective psyche. During the pandemic, we all acutely felt the influence of the microscopic, the economic, the social and the governmental. Some were intangible, but all were nonetheless consequential. There was something in the air that could potentially harm us; yet
the world, as seen through our windows, appeared as normal and benign as usual. It is these tensions that inform this sculpture. I grew up not far from Sandyford and I’m familiar with its environs and geography. One aspect of this site is the stiff wind that regularly blows down from the adjacent Three Rock Mountain. This informed the sculpture’s 14 degree lean away from the prevailing south-west wind. The larger bulging sections were positioned on the windward side and act as a physical and visual counter-balance to the inclination. The piece is a representation of tensions: between the geometric and the biological, the grounded and the ephemeral, the visible and the invisible. Positioned between a state equilibrium and disequilibrium, it appears activated by the wind and demarcates an empty space. This space, or absence, alludes to potential gaps in interpretation, opening it to different construal or readings. I like to imagine it will inspire its own mythology over time.
The site is an outdoor communal area, adjacent to the main public thoroughfare of the Sandyford Central apartment complex in Sandyford Industrial Estate. This had to be taken into account when considering the design and the finish of all edges and surfaces. When a sculpture needs to be ‘up close and personal’ to the public, the practicality of stainless steel comes into its own. I chose stainless for pragmatic reasons also. I’ve had lots of experience with this material, having worked for many years as a metal fabricator. Stainless steel is notorious for being hard to work with, but it also possesses an evenness and plasticity that lends itself to sculpting. Also, the tightening of the budget due to pandemic-related price increases necessitated that I take on most of the construction myself. The commission budget of €80,000 was later increased to €130,000 due to stainless steel almost doubling in price after the pandemic.
My meagre 3D modelling skills were not adequate for the visualisations in my proposal, so I enlisted the help of artist 1iing Heaney. She constructed a 3D model of my design in Blender with incredible results. This became the basis of a more refined model, produced by SketchUp wizard, Paul Lee from Cork. From this, I could generate AutoCAD drawings of all the individual parts. These were plasma cut from sheets of 3mm, 6mm and 20mm 316 grade stainless steel at Dungarvan Precision Engineering in Waterford. After a protracted design phase and other delays, I finally started production in March 2023. This was conducted in the workshop I built the previous summer. I kept it exclusively for stainless fabrication to reduce the chances of any ferric contamination, the bane of any stainless work. Unfortunately, I had underestimated the amount of time it would take to assemble the 807 individual parts and complete approximately 1100 meters of welding and grinding.
My optimistic projections for completion in late summer got extended until February of the following year. I used assistants to help with the edge cleaning of the plasma-cut parts and the swirl pattern applied to the 200mm wide faces. The final assembly took place outdoors in the winter of 2023. I designed a structure that would double up as a construction armature and transportation frame. When completed, it was scrubbed clean of any contaminants and the frame equipped with lifting eyes. Transport and installation were eventually scheduled for consecutive days in mid-May 2024. It was quite nerve wracking to see the sculpture glide through the air by crane. After a small delay with misaligned mounting rods, the whole project came to a close. This commission was an immense challenge for me, but ultimately very rewarding. I’m eternally grateful for the unwavering support from my colleagues, friends and family, and the project partners: Richmond Homes, Visual Artists Ireland, John Paul Construction, and OCSC Engineering. Laurence O’Toole is an artist based in County Wexford. His public artwork, The Presence of Absence, is installed at Sandyford Central, Carmanhall Road, Sandyford Industrial Estate, Dublin 18 [53°16'44.9"N 6°12'45.0"W] lo2l.ie
Technical Details:
• The underlining form of this piece is a conical frustrum with a two-metre diameter base, a height of six metres and inclined 14° off vertical.
• The sculpture is built with 316 grade stainless steel and comprises 36 prefabricated ‘fins’. Each fin is assembled from plasma-cut sections that are welded together.
• The fins have a cross-section of 200mm x 30mm and are constructed from four 3mm thick sections (upper half) and four 6mm thick sections (lower half). 30mm wide edge strips were welded to the outer and inner edges.
• All 6mm and 20mm sections are welded by a Pulse-MIG process. All 3mm sections are TIG welded. The fin edges are then ground and profiled by hand.
• These hollow fins are positioned radially and welded to a sub-surface 20mm thick baseplate. This baseplate, along with a 6mm one-piece cap-plate at the top of the sculpture plus a series of arcs, tie all the fins together into a rigid, self-supporting structure.
• The 200mm faces have an abstract hand-finished swirl effect with 120 grit abrasive. The inner and outer 30mm edges have a simple horizontal grain finish, also with 120 grit.
• The completed sculpture was transported to the site in one piece and fixed to a concrete plinth with ten M20 stainless threaded rods.
DUBLIN
PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT EVENT: DUBLIN CITY LEO
Date: Thursday 6 March
Location: VAI Offices, First Floor, 2
Curved Street, Dublin 2
Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Places: 40
Cost: Free – Dublin City based artists only
VISUAL ARTISTS’ CAFÉ: EXHIBITION
PREPARATION with Aisling Clark and Aoife Banks
Date: Thursday 3 April
Location: Rua Red Dublin D24KV8N
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Places: 30
Cost: Free – South Dublin based artists only
CONNECTED HORIZONS 1: NETWORKING SESSION AND CLINICS
[Cork, Derry, Mayo, Monaghan and Wexford]
Date: Wednesday 30 April
Location: VAI Offices, First Floor, 2
Curved Street, Dublin 2
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Places: 30
Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General admission)
CLARE
VISUAL ARTISTS’ CAFÉ: ORGANISING EXHIBITIONS EFFECTIVELY with Valeria Ceregini
[Clare, Limerick and Tipperary County Councils]
Date: Monday 7 April
Location: Suil Municipal Gallery, Causeway Link, Ennis, County Clare, V95DKP5
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Places: 40
Cost: Free – Clare, Limerick and Tipperary based artists only
ENTERING THE ART WORLD WITH ELAINE HOEY
Date: Thursday 13 March
Time: 2pm – 3:30pm
Places: Unlimited
Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General admission)
DOCUMENTING YOUR WORK WITH SIMON MILLS
Date: Thursday 20 March
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Places: Unlimited
Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General admission)
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE WITH ROSIE MCGURRAN
Date: Thursday 27 March
Time: 2pm – 3:30pm
Places: Unlimited
Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General admission)
CONNECTED HORIZONS 1: ORGANISATIONS AND SHOW & TELL
[Cork, Derry, Mayo, Monaghan and Wexford]
Date: Thursday 27 March
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: Unlimited Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General Admission)
DEVELOPING AN INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE WITH ELIZABETH MAGILL
Date: Wednesday 2 April
Time: 2pm – 3:30pm
Places: Unlimited
Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General admission)
CONNECTED HORIZONS 1: PEER CRITIQUE SESSION
[Cork, Derry, Mayo, Monaghan and Wexford]
Date: Tuesday 15 April
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Places: Unlimited
Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General Admission)
SECURING AND DELIVERING GOVERNMENT PER CENT FOR ART COMMISSIONS & SELF LED PROJECTS WITH CLODAGH EMOE
Date: Wednesday 23 April
Time: 11am – 12:30pm
Places: Unlimited Cost: €5 (VAI Members); €10 (General admission)
HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND
Date: Thursday 13 March
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: 5
Cost: Free
HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND
Date: Thursday 20 March
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: 5
Cost: Free
HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND
Date: Friday 28 March
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: 5
Cost: Free
HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND
Date: Thursday 3 April
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: 5
Cost: Free
HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND
Date: Thursday 10 April
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: 5
Cost: Free
HELPDESK WITH OONA HYLAND
Date: Thursday 17 April
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm
Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT
Date: Wednesday 5 March
Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT
Date: Wednesday 12 March Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT Date: Wednesday 19 March
Location: Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, 216 Falls Rd, Belfast BT12 6AH Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT
Date: Monday 24 March Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT Date: Wednesday 9 April Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT Date: Wednesday 16 April Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT
Date: Wednesday 23 April Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
NI HELPDESK WITH BRIAN KIELT Date: Tuesday 29 April Time: 2pm – 4:30pm Places: 5
Cost: Free
ROI Information and Bookings
To register a place or to find information on any of our upcoming Professional Development events in the Republic of Ireland, visit: visualartists. ie/professional-development
Fees
VAI members receive preferential discount of 50% on fees for all VAI training and professional development events.
NI Information and Bookings
To contact the NI Helpdesk or to inquire about upcoming Professional Development events in Northern Ireland, visit: visualartists.ie/ni-portal/ help-desk-advice
EVERY TWO MONTHS (six times per year)
The Visual Artists’ News Sheet is distributed to individual artist members and organisational members, located across Ireland and abroad.
Organisational Members of Visual Artists Ireland receive a bundle of 50 VANs, which they generally place in a public area, to be picked up for free by their visitors.
Current VAN stockists in Ireland and Northern Ireland (by county) include:
DUBLIN
ArtNetDLR, Dún Laoghaire
Arts & Disability Ireland
Black Church Print Studio
Contemporary Irish Art Society
Creative Futures Academy, NCAD
Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary
Art
dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire
Fingal County Council Arts Office
Graphic Studio Dublin
Green on Red Gallery
Inchicore College of Further Education
Irish Museum of Modern Art
Kevin Kavanagh Gallery
Olivier Cornet Gallery
Photo Museum Ireland
Space Forms Ltd, Dublin
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios
The Edward Murphy Library, NCAD
TU Dublin School of Art and Design
BELFAST
Catalyst Arts
The MAC
The Naughton Gallery
CARLOW
VISUAL, Carlow
CLARE
Súil Gallery, Clare County Library, Ennis
CORK
2020 Curates
Lavit Gallery
MTU Crawford College of Art & Design
Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen
DERRY
The Playhouse, Derry
DONEGAL
Artlink, Buncrana
An Gailearaí, Gweedore
GALWAY
Clifden Arts Festival
KERRY
Grilse Gallery, Killorglin
Kenmare Butter Market
KILDARE
Kilcock Art Gallery
Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge
KILKENNY
Butler Gallery, Kilkenny
KCAT Arts Centre, Callen
Organisational Members include galleries, museums, local authorities, studios, residencies, colleges, libraries, archives, and other arts institutions.
If your organisation would like to receive VAN bundles, please consider signing up as an Organisational Member. The annual rate is €180 and includes a range of other benefits. For further details visit: visualartists.ie
LAOIS
Dunmaise Arts Centre
Laois County Council Arts Office
LEITRIM
Leitrim Sculpture Centre
Solas Art Gallery
The Dock
LIMERICK
Limerick City Gallery of Art
LOUTH
An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk
Creative Spark, Dundalk
MAYO
Mayo County Council Arts Office
MEATH
Meath County Council Arts Office
Solstice Arts Centre, Navan
MONAGHAN
Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Newbliss
OFFALY
Esker Arts Centre, Tullamore
ROSCOMMON
Roscommon Arts Centre
SLIGO
The Model
TIPPERARY
Tipperary County Council Arts Office
TYRONE
Strule Arts Centre, Omagh
WATERFORD
GOMA Gallery of Modern Art
Waterford Gallery of Art
WESTMEATH
Luan Gallery, Athlone
Westmeath Arts Office
WEXFORD
Wexford County Council Arts Office
Wexford Arts Centre
WICKLOW
Schoolhouse for Art, Enniskerry
Artist in the Community Scheme
2025 Closing Dates
Awards Round One
Create and Fire Station Artists
Studios Catalyst residency
Artist Mentoring Award Bursary Award
Awards Round Two
31st March
7th April
28th April
21st July
29th September
Info sessions, supports and how to apply: www.create-ireland.ie
Galway Arts Centre 29/3 – 10/5/25
Highlanes Gallery 15/11/25 – 17/1/26
Limerick City Gallery of Art 5/2 – 5/4/26
