Lauren Gault’s exhibition ‘Galalith’ at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios explores the themes of agri-relations, agroecology and the interconnectedness of environmental systems. Belfast-born and now based in Glasgow, Gault’s sculptural practice looks at material change over time, raising questions around agency, conservation and loss.
Lauren Gault: from 19 May
The Solomon Gallery presents Tom Climent’s ‘Land and Longing’ exhibition. Climent’s vibrant and highly textured compositions fuse abstraction and representation and bring the viewer on a journey through imagined landscapes, embracing the role of chance and magic.
Tom Climent: 5 May – 4 June
‘Michael Warren: From the Studio’ at Hillsboro Fine Art features examples of Warren’s sculpture from across the decades, bringing together work in wood, steel and bronze with small editions of his work also on view. This is the artist’s first exhibition at the gallery since 2010 and forms a mini-survey of his career. Michael Warren: from 5 May
The Graphic Studio Gallery present works by Elke Thönnes whose current practice focuses on carborundum and monotype prints featuring seascapes of luminous blue. In contrast, her etchings focus on focal points of the Irish coastline and lakes.
Elke Thönnes: 30 April – 4 June
Collaborative artists Joanna Kidney and Michael Geddis are showing over three hundred drawings in their exhibition ‘Merge Emerge’ at the Mermaid Arts Centre. Combining abstraction and minute detail, the drawings take their cue from the patterns in science and the natural world.
Joanna Kidney and Michael Geddis: from 7 May
Conrad Frankel exhibits new paintings at the Olivier Cornet Gallery. Drawing on diverse sources, from a basketball court seen during his travels in the Greek mountains to a lane in rural Tuscany, Frankel works from life, whether in his studio or en plein air.
Conrad Frankel: from 10 April
The Séamus Ennis Arts Centre presents ‘Petal Moments’, an exhibition of watercolours and etchings by artist and printmaker Nicola Lynch Morrin. Her flower portraits explore the personalities of flowers, capturing and celebrating their delicacy and transparency.
Nicola Lynch Morrin: 4 April – 31 May
A new exhibition at Marsh’s Library showcases rare books and maps printed in the Tsardom of Russia. Dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries, the display includes three rare volumes published by the first Muscovite rulers under the orders of Ivan the Terrible, as well as maps and books by the European diplomats and merchants who visited the Tsardom. Tsardom of Russia:
1 April – 31 December
Farmleigh Gallery mounts the first retrospective of Daniel O’Neill’s work in seventy years. The exhibition brings together works from private collections complemented by loans from IMMA, the University of Limerick and the Ulster Museum. Paintings by friends and contemporaries, including Gerard Dillon, Colin Middleton and George Campbell feature alongside.
Daniel O’Neill: 13 March – 6 June
‘Young Gainsborough: Rediscovered Landscape Drawings’ at the National Gallery of Ireland shows twenty-five recently discovered landscape drawings by Thomas Gainsborough. Produced in the late 1740s, these drawings offer a glimpse into the early career of the influential landscape artist and are presented alongside paintings and works on paper borrowed from collections across Britain and Ireland.
National Gallery of Ireland: 5 March – 12 June
Artist Aidan Hickey’s Ulysses-inspired exhibition runs at the James Joyce Centre. Hickey
responds to the different literary style of each of the eighteen episodes in Joyce’s novel with a suite of paintings in distinctive visual styles that also reference European art history. ‘If my paintings only hint at the novel’s wealth of comedy and complexity, they might, for a new audience, become a silent “open sesame” to Joyce’s treasure trove,’ says Hickey.
Painting Ulysses: until 30 June
The Hugh Lane Gallery hosts a major retrospective exhibition of Patrick Graham’s work. Graham is regarded as a significant contemporary painters in Ireland. Several of his 1970s mystical landscapes, monumental paintings and triptych canvases from the 1980s, along with works from his recent return to portraiture are on display.
Patrick Graham: 9 March – 10 July
At the Chester Beatty, ‘Meeting in Isfahan: Vision and Exchange in Safavid Iran’ explores the cosmopolitan city of Isfahan during its 17th and early 18th-century boom. With sixty-five works from the library’s Persian, Turkish, Arabic and Armenian collections, as well as early printed books and maps from Europe, the exhibition also features paintings and drawings by three of the most renowned artists of the Safavid period: Reza `Abbasi, Muhammad Zaman and Mu`in Musavvir.
Chester Beatty: 4 February – 28 August