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Articles by Thomas Pool
Career Development | A Gestalt Thing
AENGUS WOODS INTERVIEWS ALEANA EGAN ABOUT HER MOTIVATIONS, PROCESSES, AND MATERIALS. Aengus Woods: Can you describe your process a little for me? When creating a sculpture, do you have a plan or do you work more intuitively? Aleana Egan: I would say my process in the studio is cyclical and intuitive; it’s hard to delineate where one thing begins and another ends.
Public Art | Ghost Riders in the Sky
EILEEN MAC DONAGH OUTLINES A SCULPTURE RESTORATION PROJECT IN HAZELWOOD, SLIGO. In 1985, a sculpture symposium run by the Sculptors Society of Ireland was held over a three-week period, involving 13 sculptors producing 14 sculptures that were sited along the lake walkway in Hazelwood Forest just outside Sligo town. James McKenna, an invited artist, started work on a sculpture extravaganza that included two horses, a charioteer, and warrior, executed on a heroic scale.
Member Profile | Rites of Homing
CHRISTINE PRESCOTT REFLECTS ON HER RECENT SOLO EXHIBITION AT CUSTOM HOUSE STUDIOS + GALLERY. How do artists materially navigate migration and find belonging within an unfamiliar ecology? Originally from rural Australia, I came to Ireland in 2007. For years, I looked back to that parched country and hot sun for its dry, dusty aesthetic. I had grown with that landscape, learned to crawl on its earth, explored markings made from grasses, insects, and animal tracks.
Exhibition Profile | Panorama Europa
SARAH LONG REVIEWS THE CURRENT EXHIBITION AT THE GLUCKSMAN IN CORK. “Panorama Europa”, two words of Greek origin, form the title of the current group show at The Glucksman, curated by Katie O’Grady and Fiona Kearney. The Greco-Roman world, often invoked as the framework for Western civilization and certainly the foundational aesthetic and code of existing power dynamics, permeates our broader understandings of Europe.
Exhibition Profile | Another Kind of Freedom
PHILLINA SUN RESPONDS TO A RECENT EXHIBITION BY PHIL COLLINS AT THE MODEL IN SLIGO. As an MFA graduate of Belfast School of Art and a former member of the artist-run gallery, Catalyst Arts, Northern Ireland in the late-1990s proved formative for visual artist and filmmaker Phil Collins, who later achieved prominence as a Turner Prize nominee in 2006. A major exhibition of his films was presented at The Model in Sligo this summer.
Festival / Biennial | Linguistic Threads
AENGUS WOODS DISCUSSES THE PARTICIPATION OF IRISH ARTISTS AT THE 61ST VENICE BIENNALE. There is something discomfiting about walking through the national pavilions that occupy the Arsenale and Giardini sites at the 61st Venice Biennale.
The Alice Project
When I was eight, I summoned a group of friends to my house for a ‘Cluedo dinner’. We had apple juice in champagne flutes, silver cloches over our dishes, and were served by ‘waiters’ – friends of my parents. Then, in the middle of dessert, there was a scream. We followed it into the kitchen, where my mother informed us that one of the waiters had been murdered. Our new quest was to be detectives; we needed to find the killer. It was thrilling.
Residency Report: Europe | Ideas of Truth
RICHARD MALONE REPORTS ON THEIR RESIDENCY EXPERIENCE IN THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME. The Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship is a residency in the British School at Rome – one of a number of historical research institutes offering residencies around the city. The BSR application opens annually in late November and is open to Ireland and UK-based artists. The scholarship is for painting and drawing, but this can be broad, experimental, and far reaching.
Residency Report: Worldwide | How To Tread Lightly
ELAINE GRAINGER REFLECTS ON HER RESIDENCY AT CASA WABI IN PUERTO ESCONDIDO, MEXICO. While out walking, I was listening to The Mater Podcast, featuring Mexican artist Bosco Sodi and curator Alberto Ríos de la Rosa discussing Fundación Casa Wabi (casawabi.org). I was captivated by the commitment and energy that Sodi and his team pour into this non-profit organisation.
Residency Report: Ireland | Shared Conditions
EOGHAN RYAN REPORTS ON HIS PARTICIPATION IN THE DWELL HERE RESIDENCY AT IMMA LAST YEAR. Thinking back on my time at IMMA, as part of the year-long Dwell Here programme, I returned to a quote that I had included at the end of my original application: “For us it’s not about possessing the territory. Rather, it’s a matter of increasing the density of communes, of circulation, and of solidarities so that the territory becomes unreadable, opaque to all authority.
Residency Report: UK | Uisce / Flora
ANNA MACLEOD DISCUSSES HER PREVIOUS PRODUCTION RESIDENCIES AT EDINBURGH SCULPTURE WORKSHOP. The Uisce / Floraperformative community river walks is the latest phase of my ‘Water Conversations’ series that explores water and land through historical, cultural, and ecological lenses. Water is central to all human and more-than-human life on earth.
Residency Report: Europe | Keys to the Castle
AVRIL CORROON REPORTS FROM AMSTERDAM ON HER ONGOING RESIDENCY AT THE RIJKSAKADEMIE. I am currently approaching the last six months of my two-year residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. The programme selects on average 23 to 25 artists from an annual open call. The application process entails a written application, portfolio, and video bio, and if pre-selected, two interviews. There is a €50 application fee.
Residency Report: Ecology | WaterLANDS
CHRISTINE MACKEY REPORTS ON HER DURATIONAL RESIDENCY AS PART OF AN EU-FUNDED PROJECT. WaterLANDS (Water-based Solutions for Carbon Storage, People and Wilderness) is an ambitious EU Horizon Europe Green Deal project, with 32 partners from 14 countries, coordinated by University College Dublin (waterlands.eu).
Residency Report: UK | Prospect Cottage
LYNDA LAIRD REPORTS ON HER RESIDENCY AT THE FORMER HOME OF ARTIST, WRITER, AND ACTIVIST, DEREK JARMAN. The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end. A time that does not cleave the day with rush hours, lunch breaks, the last bus home. As you walk in the garden you pass into this time – the moment of entering can never be remembered. Around you the landscape lies transfigured. Here is the Amen beyond the prayer. – Derek Jarman, Modern Nature (Century, 1991).
Festival and Spectacle | Betty Beour
WRITER RUBY EASTWOOD INTERVIEWS CABARET AND CIRCUS PERFORMER BETTY BEOUR. Ruby Eastwood: Tell me about your journey into cabaret. Betty Beour: I was kind of a failed drama kid. I really wanted to be singing and dancing onstage. I wanted to be in Billy Barry’s stage school, but I didn’t have the money to go. I went to a few community drama classes, but I wasn’t getting any parts in the school plays – not any good parts at least.
Festival and Spectacle | Polina Shapkina
WRITER MAYA KULUKUNDIS INTERVIEWS FIRESPINNER, AERIALIST, AND PERFORMER, POLINA SHAPKINA. Maya Kulukundis: Your work encompasses a wide variety of forms. I would be reluctant to pigeon-hole you into any one category, so I would like to ask how you would describe your practice. Polina Shapkina: The way to survive as an artist in Ireland, financially, is to do a variety of different things. Officially, I’m a circus performer. I work with a variety of companies and do middle-of-the-road circus acts.
Festival and Spectacle | Nicole Martin
WRITER LAUREN O’NEILL INTERVIEWS NICOLE MARTIN ABOUT HER LIGHT SCULPTURES Lauren O’Neill: How did you get into making light sculptures? Nicole Martin: I just liked light sculptures; I really was drawn to them in the festival scene. I think they’re very impactful, beautiful, and stand out in a dark field. I love that they come alive at night. It sounds a little silly but I’ve always been drawn to lights.
Michael Corrigan, ‘Margins’
SO Fine Art Editions 5 March – 4 April 2026 Michael Corrigan, a Dublin-based photographer and former Chair of Visual Artists Ireland, presented his new exhibition, ‘Margins’, at SO Fine Art Editions. ‘Margins’ reflects on the evanescent borders between land, sea, and sky. On first encounter, the exhibition presents a wide array of black-and-white landscape photography, focusing largely on the shorelines of Sligo, south Dublin, and Wicklow.
Member | Palimpsest | The VAN & miniVAN
JOANNA HOPKINS DISCUSSES HER ART PRACTICE AND A RECENT COMMUNITY ECOLOGY PROJECT AT NEPHIN NATIONAL PARK. I hold a BA in Fine Art Painting (2007) and an MA in Social Practice and the Creative Environment (2011) from Limerick School of Art and Design. As part of an Erasmus Exchange programme, I spent time at an art school in France, where the curriculum wasn’t separated by disciplines. Realising I could use new methods and processes encouraged me to work with multiple mediums.
Critique | Helen O’Leary, ‘Soft Spot’
The Dock 21 March – 30 May 2026 For Helen O’Leary’s exhibition ‘Soft Spot’, an artist’s studio has been installed. Surfaces are bestrewn with tools, jars, buckets, piled canvas, wood scraps, and balls of yarn, while improvised constructions are laid down by the artist, as if in mid-contemplation. Discrete works are hard to discern.
In Focus: Island Landscapes | Decentralised Integration
Sinead Mc Cormick DISCUSSES THE EVOLUTION OF THE BAVA PROGRAMME ON SHERKIN ISLAND. Over the past 25 years, the BA in Visual Arts (BAVA) programme on Sherkin Island has become known for its unique, evolving model of art education. The community-based, four-year, honours degree programme is fully accredited, managed, and delivered by the School of Art and Design at TU Dublin in partnership with Sherkin Island Development Society (SIDS), and Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre.
Exhibition | Fisherwoman, Fisherwoman
RACHAEL GILBOURNE INTERVIEWS ALBERTA WHITTLE ABOUT HER TWO-PERSON EXHIBITION WITH CAMILLE SOUTER CURRENTLY SHOWING AT IMMA. Rachael Gilbourne: When we first met in 2019, we spoke about our shared experiences of caregiving, and the difference between empathy and compassion. Your work carries this too – a deep sense of healing and hope in a brutal world. How do you speak about trauma and violence through your practice without it sinking into despair?
International | Time New Contemporaries
SÉAMUS MCCORMACK DISCUSSES THE UK-BASED ORGANISATION SUPPORTING EMERGING AND EARLY-CAREER ARTISTS FOR OVER SEVEN DECADES. At New Contemporaries, we believe that creating environments where artists feel supported from their first point of contact with the art world is essential to building a more diverse, inclusive and sustainable system. Founded in 1949, by and for artists, we continue that sprit today to be led by our values that artists change us, and that everything can be reinvented.
Organisation | Artist-Run Time
MAEVE CONNOLLY CONSIDERS THE VALUE AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF PALLAS PROJECTS/STUDIOS AS THE ORGANISATION CELEBRATES 30 YEARS. Pallas Projects/Studios (PP/S) is 30 years old this year. Established by artists Mark Cullen and Brian Duggan in 1996, with Gavin Murphy joining ten years later, its first home was the former Pallas Knitwear factory on Foley Street in Dublin.
Critique | ‘MOTH’
Backwater Artists Group 13 March – 24 April 2026 The recent group exhibition, ‘MOTH’, at Studio 12 in Backwater Artists Group in Cork, uses the adaptive evolution of the moth, following the Industrial Revolution, as a case study to consider the impact of capitalist systems on human identity and behaviours.
Critique | Andy Parsons, ‘Watching a sunset, 8.49 pm’
Queen Street Studios + Gallery 12 March – 16 April 2026 ‘Watching a sunset, 8.49 pm’ is an exhibition at QSS in Belfast of new work by Sligo-based artist, Andy Parsons, created over the last two years. This is the first iteration of a touring exhibition that will change and adapt to six different venues around Ireland. The time in the exhibition title will gradually increase with each presentation, culminating early next year at Esker Arts Centre in Tullamore with ‘Watching a sunset, 8.54 pm’.
The Art of Comedy | Ailish McCarthy
COMMISSIONING EDITOR THOMAS POOL INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN AND CAMPAIGNER AILISH MCCARTHY Thomas Pool: How did you get your start in comedy? Ailish McCarthy: In 2018, I joined the Gaiety School of Acting short course for comedy, because, when I went to college, I turned my back on being creative. But when I finished my masters, I thought “remember when you had fun?” So, the comedy course was a really good way to restart my creativity. I’d set aside time, three hours a week, to write, to laugh.
The Art of Comedy | Roger O’Sullivan
WRITER AND COMEDIAN JACK DOLAN INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN ROGER O’SULLIVAN ABOUT HIS ACT AND HIS ‘DARK NOSTALGIA’ 8-BIT VIDEOS. Jack Dolan: What got you into comedy? Roger O’Sullivan: I think it was watching stuff like The Panel on Irish television when I was growing up. There was a period of time in the early 2000s when comedy was actually quite good in Ireland, when great stuff was on TV from some of the top comedians – Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan, and Dara O’Briain.
The Art of Comedy | Maria Cunnigham
WRITER AND COMEDIAN LAUREN O’NEILL INTERVIEWS COMEDIAN, ACTOR, AND WRITER MARIA CUNNINGHAM ABOUT HER ACT, PARTICULARLY HER STYLE OF ‘CLOWNING’. Lauren O’Neill: How did you become interested in comedy through the style of clowning? Maria Cunningham: I studied acting in the Gaiety School. In first and second year, we did a week of clowning with Raymond Keane. I had never thought about pursuing clowning before that.
Art Collective | Waking The Land
THE ÁIT COLLECTIVE OUTLINE THEIR COLLABORATIVE ETHOS AND RECENT ACTIVITIES INCLUDING AN EXHIBITION AT THE DOCK. The Áit collective (previously ^) cultivates collaborative research, experimentation, and dissemination by working with the north County Leitrim community and landscape as mutual co-creators. To achieve this, we organise and host events in our workspace in the centre of Manorhamilton that we run together.
Critique | ‘IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM HERE’
CCA Derry ~ Londonderry 17 January – 14 March 2026 As I explored the group exhibition, ‘IT’S NOT CLEAR FROM HERE’ at CCA Derry ~ Londonderry, I experienced a peculiar sense of nostalgia. It stemmed from seeing old technologies that were familiar from my childhood and early adulthood – such as overhead projectors, TV monitors, and slide carousels – installed in the gallery space.
Critique | Women Artists Action Group, ‘WAAG: An Archive’
Mermaid Arts Centre 17 January – 28 February 2026 An archive often results from fortuitous luck, foresight, or both, and its true value tends to emerge with time. Happily for posterity, a comprehensive collection of documents and ephemera relating to the Women Artists Action Group (1987 – 1991) is held at the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL). It was donated by chair and founding member of WAAG, Pauline Cummins.
Critique | Naomi Sex, ‘DRILL’
VISUAL Carlow 31 January – 10 May 2026 The Digital Gallery at VISUAL Carlow presents ‘DRILL’, a newly commissioned exhibition of moving image and sound installation by Naomi Sex. The artist has written and directed a suite of scripted performances that unfold across six large monitors, dispersed throughout the darkened space. The screens are positioned so that viewers must move between them, navigating the room as if traversing a court.
Photography Roundup | New Mythologies
AENGUS WOODS CONSIDERS THREE RECENT PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITIONS IN DUBLIN. In 1947, having lived through the rise and fall of National Socialism, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer posited that “myth is already enlightenment and enlightenment reverts to mythology.” The idea that science constituted progress or conversely, that the authenticity of cultural storytelling might provide some antidote to the scientific mindset, were both false in their view.
Moving Image | Desire Lines
EMMA BATTLEBURY OUTLINES A SCREENING PROGRAMME OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM ORGANISED BY AEMI. ‘Desire Lines’ is a touring programme by aemi – a Dublin-based initiative that supports and exhibits moving image works by artists and experimental filmmakers – that premiered at the Irish Film Institute on 22 January.
Dublin International Film Festival | No Ordinary Heist
PAUL DUNNE REVIEWS NO ORDINARY HEIST AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2026. Directed by Colin McIvor, No Ordinary Heist (2026) is a heist movie of small, deep settings with large stakes. Eddie Marsan and Éanna Hardwicke face off against each other as the film’s protagonists – Richard and Barry, respectively, who grew up on the same street, and whose fathers had a history.
Dublin International Film Festival | Exit 8
CAILEIGH RYAN REVIEWS THE JAPANESE-LANGUAGE FILM, EXIT 8, AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. When someone gives you a Japanese horror film recommendation, it’s one of life’s greatest treats. Japanese filmmakers do it right and do it different, and the Dublin International Film Festival understands this. The Lighthouse Cinema was packed for the sold-out Irish premiere of Exit 8 (2025).
Dublin International Film Festival | The Lightkeeper
THOMAS POOL REVIEWS THE LIGHTKEEPER AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. A lighthouse is a lonely symbol. Often a shorthand in literature, art, and film, the lighthouse represents themes of isolation, caution, and, with each flash of its lamp, hope for a safe harbour. The Lightkeeper (2026) is a film that embodies that forlorn mixture of solitude and hope. In the Light House Cinema, however, it was quite evident that familiarity and community was all around.
Dublin International Film Festival | Anniversary
CAILEIGH RYAN REVIEWS THE IRISH PREMIERE OF ANNIVERSARY AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2026. The Irish premiere of Anniversary (2025)took place at the Dublin International Film Festival on a rainy Saturday morning at 10:30am. That’s too early for popcorn, and I hadn’t eaten breakfast, but this film certainly left me with plenty of food for thought.
Dublin International Film Festival | Resurrection
PAUL DUNNE REVIEWS THE MANDARIN-LANGUAGE RESURRECTION AT THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL. The science fiction drama, Resurrection (2025), is a fantastical, psychological exploration of the power and history of cinema. In the world of the film, dreaming has been made illegal, and as a result, everyone is now immortal. However, there are a select few, called deliriants, who choose to dream anyway, and are able to travel through time.
Critique | Oliver Jeffers ‘Disasters and Interventions’
Naughton Gallery 4 December 2025 – 29 March 2026 ‘Disasters and Interventions’ is an exhibition at Naughton Gallery of over 50 works by visual artist, and hugely successful children’s book author, Oliver Jeffers. This is the first exhibition of his work to take place in his home city of Belfast in over 20 years. It features a series of painted and collaged interventions on different surfaces and found materials – a treasure trove of schlocky paintings, antique engravings, and vintage photo albums.
Critique | Elinor O’Donovan, ‘Metametamorphosis’; Winter Sun, 2025
Sirius Arts Centre 24 January – 14 March; Triskel Arts Centre 4 November 2025 – 30 April 2026 Emerging artist Elinor O’Donovan is a self-proclaimed digital native. Her work spans filmmaking, digital collage, installation, drawing, and sculpture.
International | The School of Hibernia | The VAN & miniVAN
BRENDA MOORE-MCCANN DISCUSSES A RECENT EVENT BY NA CAILLEACHA IN ROME FOR ST BRIGID’S DAY. Two schools, two different times and sensibilities: The School of Athens (1509–11) by Raphael and The School of Hibernia (After Raphael) (2024) by the Irish art collective, Na Cailleacha. Ireland-Italy Projects was founded by Jane Adams and I in 2024 to promote cultural exchange.
International | Thinspace | The VAN & miniVAN
CIAN DUGGAN DISCUSSES THE ART SCENE IN VIETNAM. In 2017, I first travelled to Ho Chi Minh City – a place I love that inspires me. It has been home ever since. The city itself is a shapeshifting entity; the skylines morph while buildings appear, disappear, and reappear on a daily basis. Entire streets change. It is a beautiful sprawling city in a state of constant metamorphosis. During my time here, Vietnam has gone through a significant period of rapid economic development and growth.
Dublin International Film Festival | Once Upon a Time in a Cinema
THOMAS POOL REVIEWS THE OPENING NIGHT GALA OF THE DUBLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL AND THE WORLD PREMIERE OF ‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN A CINEMA’. As the bus lumbered up Dublin’s O’Connell Street, past the Carlton, on a rainy evening in February, an elderly woman sitting next to me turned to me and said, with great sadness, “That used to be a cinema. It was like a cathedral. Now look at it.” Today’s Carlton, a dog-eared casino, is no cathedral.
Member Profile | Core Heat | The VAN & miniVAN
EMMA STROUDE OUTLINES THE TRAJECTORY AND ONGOING CONCERNS OF HER FIGURATIVE PAINTING PRACTICE. In 1991, with a foundation course under my belt, I made my way from the North of England to London, where I later graduated with a BA in Painting from Chelsea College of Arts and a Postgraduate Higher Diploma from The Slade School of Fine Art. My third-level education was guided by extraordinary artists.
Critique | Susan MacWilliam, ‘Table Turning’
Ormston House 20 November 2025 – 21 February 2026 From 1916 to 1920, an engineering lecturer, William J. Crawford, regularly visited Kathleen Goligher’s Belfast home, conducting elaborate experiments to investigate her apparent psychic powers. As Goligher and her siblings sat hand-in-hand in a circle, the table between them levitated and tilted. Rapping was heard and footprints were found in bowls of damp clay that Crawford had placed on the floor.
Exhibition Profile | Acts of Creation | The VAN & miniVAN
DR KATE ANTOSIK-PARSONS REVIEWS THE HAYWARD GALLERY TOURING EXHIBITION CURRENTLY AT VISUAL. Motherhood is a subject often idealised or hastily dismissed as unworthy of critical attention within contemporary art. However, ‘Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood’, curated by Hettie Judah at VISUAL Carlow (27 Sep 2025 – 11 Jan 2026), offers an important corrective. This impressive, large-scale, group exhibition brings together over 60 international artists from the 1960s to present day.
Critique | Brian Harte ‘For Smart Living’
Butler Gallery 22 November 2025 – 8 February 2026 To begin with, a confession: I didn’t know Brian Harte’s work until I wandered into his show at the Butler Gallery in November; however, I have been living in a sea of his primary colours ever since – yellow and blue, especially.
Critique | Geraldine O’Neill ‘Flicker, Flicker’ | The VAN & miniVAN
Kevin Kavanagh Gallery 16 October – 15 November 2025 Across Geraldine O’Neill’s latest solo exhibition at Kevin Kavanagh, there are spatial, temporal, and linguistic dualities at play. The first, relating to scale, is immediately apparent upon entering the gallery. At over two metres square, the painting that informs the exhibition title, Flicker, Flicker, Age of Unreason (2025), is by far the largest work, and occupies a wall on its own.
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