The Irish Tour of Ireland at Venice takes place in three venues throughout Ireland in spring 2023. The exhibitions and events programme present an expanded view of Niamh O’Malley’s Gather exhibition from the 2022 Venice Biennale, representing Ireland. It includes existing works, new commissioned sculpture and moving image, and special guest speakers.
The first exhibition of the tour unfolds in a new form over five rooms in The Model, Sligo. Works from Ireland at Venice are brought into an expanded dialogue with a larger selection of O’Malley’s recent artworks. This substantial exhibition also reveals and considers the influence of the west of Ireland on her work.
Born Co. Mayo, O’Malley uses many materials including steel, limestone, wood, and glass. She shapes and assembles objects to create a purposeful landscape of forms. Sculptures tall and free-standing, ground-bearing and cantilevered sit alongside rhythmic and looped moving image. This exhibition is a call to gather. It invites movement and communality.
The second exhibition of the tour foregrounds O’Malley’s studio practice, encapsulating both the conception and making of the work in her studio in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, its ultimate realisation in the Irish Pavilion and now in the Dublin gallery. This exhibition, which includes several new works, is both lure and demand, for touch, encounter, and occupancy. It asks what it means to engage in the material practice of making art at this time and in this room.
A day-long gathering in The Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo brings together parallel creative voices, in language and film, who produced work alongside Niamh O’Malley’s Gather exhibition. The event will feature readings by acclaimed writers Eimear McBride and Brian Dillon who contributed texts to the exhibition book as well as conversations with Niamh O’Malley and the Curatorial Team Clíodhna Shaffrey and Michael Hill. Accompanying film screenings include those by artist, Jenny Brady whose film follows O’Malley through the making of her Venice work and Ross Kavanagh’s film, which documents the exhibition in Venice. The day will be mediated by Kate Strain of Kunstverein Aughrim. This is an occasion to meet the artist in her home county and consider an artists’ expanded practice as an opportunity for collaborative creativity across disciplines of literature and film.
Associated exhibitions
The Complex, Dublin
March 24–April 7, 2023
The Complex presents a group exhibition of artworks gathered together in the very particular architecture of The Complex Gallery by Curator Mark O’Gorman and Niamh O’Malley. The artists are Louisa Casas, Isabel English, Niamh O’Malley, Jan McCullough.
The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
April 29–June 24, 2023
Niamh O’Malley studied in Belfast, lived there for over ten years and was part of the early days of Catalyst Arts. She returns to present a selection of her moving image and sculptural work in the large industrial spaces of The Golden Thread Gallery.
Niamh O’Malley was born in Co. Mayo, Ireland, and lives and works in Dublin. Her recent solo exhibitions include John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2021), mother’s tankstation Dublin (2020), Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin (2019), Lismore Castle Arts (2019), Grazer Kunstverein (2018), Bluecoat, Liverpool (2015), The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2017 and 2015). Selected group exhibitions include Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival; CAG, Vancouver; eva International, Limerick; Eli & Edythe Broad Museum, Michigan; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.
The Ireland at Venice Irish Tour is curated by the Temple Bar Gallery + Studios Curatorial Team. Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, supports the development of artists and creation of art. The TBG+S Curatorial Team comprises Clíodhna Shaffrey, Director, and Michael Hill, Programme Curator.
The Irish Tour of Ireland at Venice is supported by the Arts Council as part of its commitment to promote the visual arts to Irish audiences.
