Galway International Arts Festival exhibitions explore the personal and communal
With just a month to go to the opening of Galway International Arts Festival's visual arts programme, work is well underway to transform temporary exhibition spaces in the city that the festival has availed of in recent years.
These include the Festival Gallery on William Street, which will be home to works from 'Presence', the flagship show from acclaimed sculptor, Sean Henry.
His monumental pieces will also be in public spaces round the city, including Eyre Square and the Claddagh's Middle Arch. With his works, Sean Henry is inviting people to pause, reflect and reconsider their relationships with public space, memory and one another.
The Printworks Gallery on Market Street is also being revamped and will house two photographic exhibitions as well as a show of large-scale, fold-out painted canvases based on one young man’s life on the run during Ireland’s War of Independence and Civil War.
'Stateside' from Jackie Nickerson offers a layered photographic portrait of contemporary America, examining identity, labour, landscape and social change.
Showing alongside this will be Lorraine Tuck's 'Limbo' in which the Oughterard woman explores histories of loss, remembrance and resilience through her evocative landscapes.
The third show at the Printworks Gallery will be Dolores Lyne's 'Rebel Kin: To the Letter'.
In it she draws on letters from a defining moment in Irish history to offer a unique perspective on political division, family relationships and the lasting impact of war. Kerry artist and longtime Galway resident Dolores has used family correspondence and archival material for this exhibition, which intertwines personal stories with national history.
'Ómós' at the Kenny Gallery will celebrate the distinctive work of the late Gertrude Degenhardt , who died in 2025. The German artist, acclaimed for her wit, humanity and unique vision, lived in the West of Ireland for many years and brought her distinctive perspective to bear as she captured life here.
This show honours her long relationship with the Kenny Gallery.
'Ireland at Venice – Assembly', Ireland's Pavilion from the2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Cotter and Naessens Architects, will be at the University of Galway's O'Donoghue Theatre.
'Assembly', which was inspired by Ireland's Citizens' Assembly, is a multi-sensory installation combining architecture, craft, sound and storytelling as it examines collective participation, shared responsibility and the ways in which communities can imagine new futures.
Together with 'Presence, it puts "public space, participation and collective experience at the heart of this year's programme", according to GIAF's artistic director, Paul Fahy.
In the unique Interface arts space at Lough Inagh, Aleana Egan's 'A Maritime Child' will be a site-responsive exhibition, engaging with the building's former life as a salmon hatchery.
John Rainey's ’Deviations’ at Galway Arts Centre will be a show of cast porcelain, metal and marble sculptures, With this exhibition, the Belfast artist will reconfigure the visual language of classical statuary and offer alternative sculptural histories.
Other festival exhibitions across the city will include ‘As it Darkens’ a new show from James Wellwood at Engage Art Studios, while Artspace Studios will have an anniversary show to mark 40 years of that group supporting artists and creative communities.
This year's programme also includes ’The Space Between’ by Luke Reidy at the Outset Gallery and ‘Brass Waterbed’ by Tadhg Ó Cuirrín at 126 Artist-Run Gallery, both in the city, while Sioban Piercy's 'Restless Objects' an exhibition of delicate sculptural books will be at WB Yeats' one-time home, Thoor Ballylee, near Gort.
Full details on all shows are available at giaf.ie