The Visual Artists News Sheet

17/03/2025

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.

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 ...

13/03/2025

LISA FINGLETON REFLECTS ON A MONTH-LONG RESIDENCY AT NAVDANYA BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION FARM IN NORTHERN INDIA.

“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?

LISA FINGLETON REFLECTS ON A MONTH-LONG RESIDENCY AT NAVDANYA BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION FARM IN NORTHERN INDIA. “We are all connected through food. We a ...

13/03/2025

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.

10/03/2025

CLARE LYMER OUTLINES NIVAL’S RECENT ACQUISITION OF THE BELFAST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE ART ARCHIVE.

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.

CLARE LYMER OUTLINES NIVAL’S RECENT ACQUISITION OF THE BELFAST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PERFORMANCE ART ARCHIVE. In a significant move for the preservation ...

05/03/2025

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS CHAIRPERSON MARY LOU O'KENNEDY ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW ROSS AND THE SOUTHEAST OF IRELAND.

Thomas Pool: What can you tell us about your background? What drew you to the Ros Tapestry project?

Mary Lou O’Kennedy: I’m a resident of New Ross, County Wexford, where the tapestries originated. I have a personal background in community development work, and in my career, previously, I would have worked professionally in the area of community development and local development. I had become very involved in community projects in the town, including the development of St Michael’s Theatre. I was asked in 2020 to Chair the board of New Ross Needlecraft Ltd which is the management board of the Ros Tapestry. That’s what drew me to the Ros Tapestry project initially.

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS CHAIRPERSON MARY LOU O'KENNEDY ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HIS ...

05/03/2025

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS STITCHER ROSA RONAN ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW ROSS AND THE SOUTHEAST OF IRELAND.

Thomas Pool: What can you tell us about your background? What drew you to the Ros Tapestry project?

Rosa Ronan: I’m from New Ross, my family has been here for nine generations. I went to school in Holy Faith Convent, then after that I trained in hotel management for two years. Then I went to Wexford, then Germany, then to Cork for a year, and then I did three years at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. My mother got sick, and I had to come home to New Ross, to help her run her café. Then I met John Ronan, we married in 1965, and have two sons: David and Sean.

I wasn’t really interested in stitching, but when Reverend Paul Mooney of Saint Mary’s in New Ross saw the Bayeux Tapestries, he was inspired to create the Ros Tapestry project.

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS STITCHER ROSA RONAN ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW ROSS ...

05/03/2025

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS CHAIRPERSON MARY LOU O'KENNEDY ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW ROSS AND THE SOUTHEAST OF IRELAND.

Thomas Pool: What can you tell us about your background? What drew you to the Ros Tapestry project?

Mary Lou O’Kennedy: I’m a resident of New Ross, County Wexford, where the tapestries originated. I have a personal background in community development work, and in my career, previously, I would have worked professionally in the area of community development and local development. I had become very involved in community projects in the town, including the development of St Michael’s Theatre. I was asked in 2020 to Chair the board of New Ross Needlecraft Ltd which is the management board of the Ros Tapestry in 2020. That’s what drew me to the Ros Tapestry project initially.

05/03/2025

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS STITCHER SUSAN SYNNOTT ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW ROSS AND THE SOUTHEAST OF IRELAND.

Thomas Pool: What can you tell us about your background? What drew you to the Ros Tapestry project?

Susan Synnott: I have been interested in arts and crafts since my schooldays. I have been costume co-ordinator with New Ross Musical Society for about 20 years. I had an aunt who was a dressmaker, and I have been told that I have inherited her creativity! I suppose I grew up around this type of hobby. In college (where I studied Hotel Management) in the 1970s, I used to modify and make clothes for friends, including debs dresses and even wedding dresses. History, including the history of my town, has also been an interest of mine. My family have been in New Ross for generations and can be traced in the town back at least as far as the Battle of Ross in 1798.

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS STITCHER SUSAN SYNNOTT ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW R ...

05/03/2025

THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS STITCHER ROSA RONAN ABOUT THE ROS TAPESTRY – A MONUMENTAL PROJECT 27 YEARS IN THE MAKING CHRONICLING THE MEDIEVAL HISTORY OF NEW ROSS AND THE SOUTHEAST OF IRELAND.

Thomas Pool: What can you tell us about your background? What drew you to the Ros Tapestry project?

Rosa Ronan: I’m from New Ross, my family has been here for nine generations. I went to school in Holy Faith Convent, then after that I trained in hotel management for two years. Then I went to Wexford, then Germany, then to Cork for a year, and then I did three years at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. My mother got sick, and I had to come home to New Ross, to help her run her café. Then I met John Ronan, we married in 1965, and have two bots: David and Sean.

I wasn’t really interested in stitching, but when Reverend Paul Mooney of Saint Mary’s in New Ross saw the Bayeux Tapestries, he was inspired to create the Ros Tapestry project.

05/02/2025

BRIAN CURTIN DISCUSSES HIS ROLE AS ONE OF THE CURATORS OF THE BANGKOK ART BIENNALE 2024 WHICH INCLUDES THE WORK OF FOUR IRISH ARTISTS.

The fourth Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) opened to the public on 24 October 2024 amidst a glitzy week of events, launches, and after-parties. It will run for nearly four months, closing on 25 February. This edition of BAB presents over 70 artists from around the world and is staged across 11 venues. These include the conventional Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), ancient temples, and a new development, titled One Bangkok – a residential and commercial district in the centre of the city. The digital facade of an enormous shopping centre was also put to use for artists’ films.

Ambitious, if not dizzying, in its scope and ambition, BAB speaks to many currencies.

BRIAN CURTIN DISCUSSES HIS ROLE AS ONE OF THE CURATORS OF THE BANGKOK ART BIENNALE 2024 WHICH INCLUDES THE WORK OF FOUR IRISH ARTISTS. The fourth Bangkok Ar ...

03/02/2025

Material Laboratories: Metal Fest

National Sculpture Factory

5 October 2024

The night of Psyche II, James L. Hayes’s collaborative performance, was one of the wettest nights of the year. Despite the orange weather warning for rain, the event – which centred on an outdoor live iron casting in the yard of the National Sculpture Factory – proceeded. The result was an epic battle with the elements: a battle to get the huge iron furnace up to a temperature of 1500 degrees in driving rain; a battle to keep the moulds for the pour sufficiently hot; and a battle to prevent the molten iron from exploding in showers of sparks, when in contact with water. There was something undeniably operatic about the spectacle as helmeted and leather-clad bodies laboured in clouds of steam or crouched beside the furnace to catch the boiling iron in their ladles.

Material Laboratories: Metal Fest  National Sculpture Factory  5 October 2024 The night of Psyche II, James L. Hayes’s collaborative performance, ...