Exhibitions We Fell In Love With & Upcoming Exhibitions This Autumn
From Summer’s Canvas to Autumn’s Stage: Exhibitions We Fell In Love With in Summer and Upcoming Exhibitions This Autumn
It is thought that some of the greatest art is made during times of great upheaval, and looking at the artistic output of Ireland at the moment it is hard to doubt that sentiment. The great work being produced by Irish artists at the moment, whether it be music, visual or literary, is at an all time high, and the world’s interest in this art is more direct than ever. Turning specifically to visual art, coming to the end of the summer season there are some incredible exhibitions at the moment in Irish galleries by both Irish and International artists that are sure to inspire greatly, and provide a little hope in the power of art at times like these.
Exhibitions We Loved This Summer
Stay Forever More - Patryk Gizicki at Outset Gallery Galway
“Stay Forever More” is a semi-fictional, reflective photographic series by Patryk Gizicki exploring themes of home, belonging, and coming of age. Drawing on personal experience, the work reconstructs and confronts memories of Gizicki’s childhood and adolescence growing up in Castlebar, County Mayo. Through an installation of images that evoke feelings of transition and in-between states, “Stay Forever More” reflects on the complexities of settling in, identity, and belonging.
Anarchive - Artlink Members exhibition at Fort Dunree
The Portrait has served as a visual archive, a means to acknowledge existence, preserve beauty and act as witness. It offers the promise of immortality and the display of status and power. An archive seeks to explore the limitations of the traditional Portrait.Bringing together artists working across diverse media, the exhibition interrogates the conventional role of portraiture, as a stable archive of memory, subjecthood, and power. Instead foregrounding the unruly, the partial and the ephemeral.
Manner-isms - A.S. Dutton and Francine Marquis at 126 Gallery Galway
An exhibition by Burren-based artists A.S. Dutton and Francine Marquis, Manner-isms brings together the work of Dutton and Marquis in an exhibition of sculpture, textile and print that invites the viewer to consider the roles of time and place, from the intimacy of the everyday to the aeonic journey of earth’s fundamental materials.
An Artist’s Presence - National Gallery of Ireland
An Artist’s Presence explores how artists, consciously or unconsciously, have placed themselves in their work through drawings and paintings from the Gallery’s permanent collection. Spanning the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, it includes works of art by artists as diverse as William Orpen, Elisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, James Barry, Flora Mitchell, Seán Keating and Nancy Lee Katz.
To Whom It May Concern - Mohammed Sami at the Douglas Hyde Gallery
Mohammed Sami is a painter. Working directly onto canvas with brushes, pallet knives and spray paint, Sami creates textures, surfaces and details building the composition as a whole. Mining personal experiences to ground his work and influenced by Arabic literature and poetry, Sami replaces images of trauma with oblique references to loss or conflict. ‘My paintings seek to capture the state of confusion that occurs because of the cut thread between reality and the imagination; between war narrated and war witnessed.”
Beacon of Light - Greg Hallahan at St Brigid’s Cathedral and Round Tower
For this installation, original artworks have been reimagined as transparent, stained-glass–inspired pieces, printed onto plexiglass. Set within the Round Tower’s nine windows, each work offers a distinct vision of Brigid, embodying her power, resilience, and kindness.
Carousel - Mary Cullen Kelly at Dunamaise Gallery
This series of paintings, prints and objects seek to describe a world that can feel familiar and strange all at the same time. Things are always changing. The artist draws on science fiction movies from the 50s and 60s. Colourful paintings of domestic and ‘small town’ settings draw us in with a whiff of nostalgia, a sense of the familiar which is subverted as things are not quite as expected.
Staying with the Trouble - 40 Irish and Ireland-based artists at the Irish Museum of Modern Art
Staying with the Trouble is inspired by author and philosopher Donna Haraway’s seminal work of the same name. The exhibition features over 40 Irish and Ireland-based artists whose diverse practices explore urgent themes of our time.
Exhibitions that Are Worth Seeing This Autumn
As days grow shorter, we all look for some cozy spaces to spend our time in, galleries across Ireland are staging some of the season’s most compelling exhibitions. Autumn is always a vital moment in the cultural calendar here, with institutions and independent spaces opening their doors to new ideas, retrospectives and conversations that span generations. Irish art has long thrived on a spirit of resilience and reinvention, drawing from deep traditions while pushing fearlessly into the contemporary. Don’t miss a chance to participate in a living, evolving culture and visit these amazing exhibitions throughout this season!
Jack Butler Yeats; The Dreaming Road - The Mode Gallery, Sligo 25 Mar - 1 Nov 2025
The Dreaming Road presents audiences with the opportunity to trace Jack Butler Yeats’ extraordinary journey as an artist through four important, interconnected stages of his life and work. The show touches on the legacy of his unique artistic family, as well as the indelible influence of his early life in Sligo on his entire career. A selection of his politically charged paintings of the 1920s are on view alongside a number of the great masterpieces of his later years, which are noted for their wildly romantic and expressionistic style.
Maurice Marinot – On Paper, In Glass - National Gallery of Ireland 2 Aug - 25 Jan 2026
Maurice Marinot, a French artist who was renowned for redefining the expressive potential of glassmacing. This exhibition showcases a selection of his works of art spanning from 1900s to the 1950s, the art that infuses the intense colors of his earlier painting into stunning glass objects such as vases, flagons, bowls and paperweights.
From Rembrandt to Matisse – A Celebration of European Prints and Drawings - Print Gallery 27 Jun - 8 Nov 2026
In celebration of Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the National Gallery of Ireland presents a special exhibition featuring some of the finest works on paper by artists from across Europe.
Anna McKeever-Full Beam - Gormleys Dublin 25 Sept - 20 Oct 2025
McKeever’s words draw from her deep understanding of the human condition, exploring themes of connection, belonging and the Irish psyche. The paintings are characterised by bold colours and dynamic textures, creating immersive landscapes with ancient mythological themes.
Inner Fire - Shreya Shah at Gallery X
Shreya Shah is an Indian artist, originally from the west of India (Gujarat). She moved to Ireland 8 years ago and studied part-time at NCAD. Irish and Indian ancient spiritual practices inspire Shreya’s work, with fire being a central theme of this her first solo show. Through this body of work, Shreya is connecting to her “Inner Fire” and inviting the viewers to interact with the works and further tend to their inner fire.
Writer: Blaise Gilburd and Ieva Dambrauskaite
Editor: Ieva Dambrauskaite
