10 exhibitions and other art events to watch out for in the coming months
A detail from The House of Death, by William Blake, part of the exhibition at the National Gallery.
Curated by artists Paul Hallahan and Lee Welch, this group exhibition takes its title from one of the late Tim Buckley’s most iconic songs, and its inspiration from the Irish writer Brian O’Nolan, whose output under the pseudonyms Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen was, Hallahan and Welch observe, marked by a quiet melancholy.
The show will feature work by Banksy, Seán Scully, Jack B Yeats, and Eleanor McCaughey, among others.
The Irish Cultural Centre in Paris is a home-from-home for artists from these shores, providing residencies and exhibitions throughout the year.
This new exhibition by the Cork-based artist Ailbhe Ní Bhriain includes a monumental Jacquard tapestry, based on a Victorian era portrait, but woven from silk, wool, cotton, and lurex.
Ní Bhriain graduated with a PhD from Kingston University UK and has recently shown at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin and Lismore Castle Arts in Co Waterford.
Daphne Wright is one of Ireland’s most successful international artists. Her new show at the Frith Street Gallery in London will follow on from her current exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, which finishes on February 8.
Both exhibitions feature a massive new work, Sons and Couch, a life-size sculpture cast in jesmonite of the artist’s two sons.
This is the latest in a series that began with Sons in 2011, created when the boys were entering adolescence; Sons and Couch depicts them on the cusp of adulthood.
Danny Foley was the sole recipient of the 2025 Cork Arts Society Student of the Year Award for his graduate exhibition at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design.
The award was initiated in 1967, when it was presented to sculptor John Burke. Recent recipients have included Deirdre Frost, Andrea Newman, and Lara Quinn.
Foley’s new body of work explores the role of the shapeshifter, particularly in relation to biodiversity, through the media of drawing, painting, collage and animation.
MTU Crawford College of Art & Design’s annual MAKE conference will this year feature among its speakers the British sculptor and musician, and Turner Prize winner, Martin Creed; the Swiss installation and sound artist ZIMOUN; the Hungarian poly-disciplinary duo Judit Eszter Kárpáti and Esteban de la Torre; philosopher Helen Fielding of Ontario; and Irish sculptor Vivienne Roche.
Designed by Dublin-based architects O’Donnell + Tuomey, the new Victoria & Albert East Museum at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, East London will, on its opening on April 18, provide five floors of exhibition and performance spaces.
It will feature , a permanent exhibition of more than 500 objects from the V&A collection, along with a busy programme of exhibitions of contemporary and historical art and design.
William Blake (1757-1827) was a poet, painter and printmaker who lived in London for most of his life and is probably best known today for his book .
Produced in collaboration with the Tate in Britain, this major exhibition will feature over 100 artworks, including a selection of some of Blake’s most iconic pieces, along with paintings and drawings by his contemporaries, including JMW Turner, Henry Fuseli and the Corkman, James Barry.
Isabel Nolan, will represent Ireland at the 61st edition of the world’s most prestigious festival of the visual arts.
Nolan, who is based in Dublin, uses sculpture, textiles, photography and text in her practice, and is often inspired by literary works, such as Thomas Hardy’s poem .
She was one of seven artists who represented Ireland at the Biennale in 2005. On this occasion, Ireland will be among over 80 countries participating.
Leanne McDonagh is a visual artist from the Traveller community in Co Cork.
She graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork in 2012, and has since exhibited at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork and the Origin Gallery, Dublin.
Her work in photography and print reflects on her upbringing as a Traveller woman, and on the experience of the Traveller community nationwide.
Hilma af Klimt (1862–1944) was a Swedish artist and mystic who produced portraits and illustrations for a living, but also created a large body of abstract paintings that was largely unknown outside her immediate circle.
Most of these works, inspired by af Klimt’s interest in Spiritualism and the Theosophy religious movement, remained in storage until the 1980s, but are now recognised as being among the earliest examples of abstract art.
The Artist and Visionary exhibition will feature key works such as The Swan and Altarpieces, along with a selection of plant studies, portraits and landscapes.
