Imagine Visual Arts
The United States has provided a huge source of inspiration and visual stimulation for Irish artists, with American design an exceptionally strong influence. American cities in particular expand our experience of the urban, evoking the exotic, unfamiliar and distant.
But it’s not just a source of raw material, a quarry to be raided. There is also now an intensity of connections at institutional and curatorial level: residencies and exchanges at venues such as PS1 and PointB NY provide artistic development opportunities, art fairs provide extensive audiences and access to American collectors, and perhaps most importantly, the substantial US art press provide vital information and access to critical discourse, writing and reviews.
America continues to be a font of provocation and influence for Irish artists today. Imagine Ireland includes exhibitions of major new work by leading Irish artists across the generations, including many who have lived and worked in the US and whose frame of reference embraces both cultures.
Past Events
Suzannah Vaughan: Tracing Form
Vaughan’s Tracing Form will feature a luminous string installation and several glass-cement sculptures in the artist’s first exhibition in Washington, DC. Using linear perspective and…
- Location: DC
- Dates: January 07 – February 12
Gerard Byrne: A thing is a hole in a thing it is not
Irish artist Gerard Byrne presents a new multi-channel film installation titled A thing is a hole in a thing it is not, a five-channel video…
- Location: IL
- Dates: January 09 – February 27
Brian Ormond: IIIII
Inspired by naturally occurring lines and their relationship to one another, Ormond creates networks of lines that might resemble delicate systems of order and balance. …
- Location: NY
- Dates: January 11 – February 19
Group Show: Enter Slowly
Enter Slowly, curated by David Cunningham, features the work of Anna Barham, Cath Campbell, Maud Cotter, Laura Gannon, Alexandra Navratil, and Linda Quinlan.
…- Location: CA
- Dates: January 14 – February 19
Mark Clare: Remote Control
Remote Control a solo exhibition of new work consisting of photography, sculpture and video to take place in the Illges Gallery at Columbus State University,…
- Location: GA
- Dates: January 18 – February 26
Andrew Duggan: Court
Court is a visual art project in NYC, hosted by The Irish Arts Centre with visual artist Andrew Duggan. It uses the cast concrete Irish…
- Location: NY
- Dates: January 24 – March 28
Art Los Angeles Contemporary
Art Los Angeles Contemporary is an international contemporary art fair held January 27-30, 2011. The fair presents 70 international and emerging galleries from around the…
- Location: CA
- Dates: January 27 – January 30
Noel Brennan: Objects of Devotion and Desire
Curated by Dr Cynthia Hahn with the collaboration of Barbara Boehm, Curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition revisits and analyses the psychological…
- Location: NY
- Dates: January 27 – April 30
Dennis McNulty: in residence
A residency at Brown University, activating the newly built Granoff Center for Creative Arts and realizing a new piece of temporary public artwork. Curated by…
- Location: RI
- Dates: February 01 – May 01
Alice Maher: Godchildren of Enantios
For her third solo show in New York, Alice Maher will present four animated films with sound by Trevor Knight, plus two new sculptural works. …
- Location: NY
- Dates: February 10 – March 05
James L Hayes: Dark lights continued
“Dark lights continued….’ is a one person exhibition at the Good Children Gallery in New Orleans by Irish Contemporary Artist James L Hayes.. The show…
- Location: LA
- Dates: February 12 – March 12
Crossings - the Jackie Clarke Collection
Crossings, a partnership between Mayo County Council’s Jackie Clarke Collection and archive of the American Irish Historical Society, is being shown in the AIHS landmark…
- Location: NY, DC
- Dates: February 23 – March 17
Group Exhibition: Wake Amusements
An exhibition of books by 12 Irish artists organized by Curator Matt Packer, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork. Drawing reference to the jovial funerary…
- Location: CA
- Dates: March 01 – March 31
Elaine Byrne: Message to Salinas
DVD ‘Message to Salinas’ is shown at Artprojx as part of the Armory and Volta art fairs. The DVD is being played on 2nd and…
- Location: NY
- Dates: March 02 – March 05
Paul Nugent at Volta NY
VOLTA NY is an invitational show of solo artist’s projects. it is the American incarnation of the successful young fair founded in Basel in 2005.…
- Location: NY
- Dates: March 03 – March 06
The Armory Show
The Armory Show is America’s leading fine art fair devoted to the most important art of the 20th and 21st centuries. In its eleven years,…
- Location: NY
- Dates: March 03 – March 07
Elizabeth Cope: Retrospective
Sandra Gibson, in Circa Magazine (Feb 2009) said, ‘Somehow Cope manages to combine with this gallows humour - this sense of desolate inevitability - a…
- Location: NY
- Dates: March 28 – April 09
Ireland: Alphabet Series - A Touring Exhibition from Cork Printmakers
This exhibition consists of 26 prints by 26 artists, each work taking a letter of the alphabet as a starting point.
Cork Printmakers,…- Location: NY
- Dates: April 11 – June 24
Caoimhghin Ó Fraithiile: Three Times Ten
This Gallery Exhibition will consist of a series of recent drawings and site-specific installations
- Location: NY
- Dates: April 21 – May 22
Art Chicago 2011
BlueLeaf Gallery will exhibit works by Irish artists Suzy O’Mullane, Tom Climent, Marty Kelly, Eugene Magowan at Art Chicago 2011. Art Chicago® 2011, the annual…
- Location: IL
- Dates: April 28 – May 02
NEXT Chicago 2011
NEXT is the invitation only section of the Art Chicago art fair, one of North America’s largest and most prestigious art fairs. The fair is…
- Location: IL
- Dates: April 29 – May 04
Ronnie Hughes
Ronnie Hughes will present a solo exhibition consisting of 8 new paintings with Steve Turner Contemporary at NEXT, the International Exhibition of Emerging Art, Chicago.
- Location: IL
- Dates: April 29 – May 02
Dennis McNulty
A public sculpture by Dennis McNulty
In the gardens of the Nightingale-Brown House
“Windshield” (2011) is an evocation of Windshield House,…- Location: RI
- Dates: April 29 – December 31
Eamon O’Kane: Broodwork: It’s About Time
The Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to premiere Eamon O’Kane’s impressive installation “Froebel Eames Studio” to the Los…
- Location: CA
- Dates: April 30 – June 11
Temple of Transition for Burning Man 2011
The International Arts Megacrew (IAM) has been awarded the commission to create and construct the official 2011 Temple project for the Burning Man event. Named…
- Location: NV
- Dates: May 01 – September 11
Erin Quinn: Surveillance
Group show featuring work from 5 winners of the Armadillo Fine Art Publishing New York Juried Art competition, including Irish artist Erin Quinn. Winners include…
- Location: NY
- Dates: May 05 – May 19
Jackie Nickerson and Anthony Haughey: HEAVEN AND EARTH
Showcase exhibition of work by two of Ireland’s leading photographic artists at the New York Photo Festival.
- Location: NY
- Dates: May 11 – May 15
Group Shop: Neighbo(u)rhood
Organized by Dublin based Curator, Georgina Jackson, Neighbo(u)rhood, will present work based on the concept and meaning of community. The artists selected from Ireland, Europe…
- Location: PA
- Dates: May 13 – August 21
Three: Damien Flood / Joy Garnett / Andrew Seto
This show brings together three artists whose work inhabits a delicate grey area between factual imagery, subjective recall, and painterly interaction. We all see what…
- Location: NY
- Dates: May 14 – June 19
Sarah Pierce: I Am Searching for Field Character
Dublin-based artist Sarah Pierce will participate in I Am Searching for Field Character, an exhibition series of performance, installation, screening and conversation produced by Bureau…
- Location: MA
- Dates: May 26 – September 30
Group Show: Invite or Reject
‘Invite or Reject’ is an ambitious new exhibition curated by MART’s Ciara Scanlan and Matthew Nevin. The show consists of 13 selected Irish artists -…
- Location: IL, NY, CA
- Dates: June 02 – August 24
Texas Zydeco, photographs by James Fraher
The Texas Zydeco exhibition features 40 black and white photographs which were originally published in the book Texas Zydeco, collaboration between writer Roger Wood and…
- Location: TX
- Dates: June 03 – August 27
Fiona Hallinan
Fiona Hallinan engages in the site responsive installation of both material and sound. She explores methods of chorography, deep mapping and contemporary antiquarianism.
- Location: DC
- Dates: June 06 – June 30
Paul O’Donoghue: Currents 2011
Currents 2011 is an international festival of New Media incorporating video, audio and interactive installations, single channel video, animation, web based art, gaming, multimedia performances…
- Location: NM
- Dates: June 10 – June 19
Difference Engine: MANIFESTATION III
Difference Engine: MANIFESTATION III exhibits a tendency to fictionalize, seemingly squinting at reality through a half-cocked eye. The works establish a gravitational system of sorts…
- Location: NY
- Dates: June 10 – June 18
Nick Miller: TREE HOUSE 360˚
Working from a 25’ high tree house platform at the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut, Miller painted a 360 degree portrait of the…
- Location: MA
- Dates: June 16 – August 18
Mark Clare: DemocraCity
DemocraCity is a new video work that explores the possibility of a contemporary utopian society based on the philosophy of B.F. Skinner and Theodore John…
- Location: NY
- Dates: June 16 – July 03
“A Desert in the Ocean”: The View From Cill Rialaig
An exhibition of works resulting from the convergence of Irish and American artists and writers in retreat at Cill Rialaig on the remote coast of…
- Location: NY
- Dates: June 29 – August 12
Jesse Jones
REDCAT presents the first U.S. solo exhibition by Dublin-based visual artist Jesse Jones. Jones will exhibit recent works along with a newly commissioned work developed…
- Location: CA
- Dates: July 01 – August 28
Walker and Walker
“Super 8” is an international video exhibition featuring the work of forty contemporary artists at the Christopher Grimes Gallery in Los Angeles. Each week of…
- Location: CA
- Dates: July 08 – September 03
Barbara Novak in conversation with Nick Miller: INTO THE WOODS: LANDSCAPE ART AND THOREAU
Programmed for the 70th Anniversary of The Thoreau Society Annual Gathering, 2011:
Henry David Thoreau’s Environmental Ethos: Then and Now
Barbara Novak…- Location: MA
- Dates: July 10 – July 10
Charlie Whisker: Anamnesis
An exhibition of recent work by the Irish artist, Charlie Whisker.
- Location: NJ
- Dates: July 19 – August 09
Group show: this little bag of dreams…
A group exhibition featuring six contemporary Irish Artists living and working in Ireland. The exhibition will include painting, sculpture, video, and performance. The list of…
- Location: CA
- Dates: July 23 – August 27
SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) Santa Fé
The Crafts Council of Ireland, in conjunction with Flow, one of the UK’s leading applied art galleries, are presenting the work of Irish artists Joe…
- Location: NM
- Dates: August 04 – August 07
Mark Garry
Mark will be presenting a completely new sculptural installation at Cave. This installation will integrate a number of Mark’s ongoing interests combined with a number…
- Location: MI
- Dates: August 13 – September 13
Mark Clare: DreamHouse
DreamHouse is a solo exhibition of new work consisting of photography, sculpture, video and a new large site-specific work developed for the Grounds of LaGrange…
- Location: GA
- Dates: September 06 – October 08
Neal Greig
Neal Greig will be exhibiting his new work which is based outside in the Estates of Caledon, Tynan and Castle Leslie in the Counties of…
- Location: IL
- Dates: September 09 – September 30
Dragana Jurisic
“There proceeds steadily from that place a stream of events which are a source of danger to me,” wrote the Irish born writer, Rebecca West…
- Location: NY
- Dates: September 16 – September 17
Ross McDonnell
Isolation Room will be reconfigured and placed into the LEMP building, one of many industrial spaces in St. Louis now in reuse from former dilapidation.…
- Location: MO
- Dates: September 17 – October 11
Amanda Coogan
This September, contemporary art finds a dynamic new home at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, when the Museum unveils to the public the Linde…
- Location: MA
- Dates: September 17 – September 17
dubh – dialogues in black
The exhibition “dubh – dialogues in black” looks at black as both a physical and an emotional starting point for a group of Irish and…
- Location: NY
- Dates: October 06 – November 27
Eamon O’Kane
The exhibition is titled “There is another world, but it is in this one.” after a quote by W.B. Yeats. I have chosen to my…
- Location: NY
- Dates: October 13 – November 10
Nevan Lahart
Nevan will present a solo exhibition at Steve Turner Contemporary
An installation at the 18th Steet Arts Centre which is a collaborative…- Location: CA
- Dates: October 15 – April 01
Katie Holten at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art
The artist will give a presentation of her work, followed by questions and answers, moderated by Steven Matijcio, curator of exhibitions. Holten will also participate…
- Location: NC
- Dates: October 18 – October 19
Andrew Duggan
Outdoor Projection - Hell’s Kitchen Ball Park
Hosted by The Irish Arts Centre ‘Court’ uses the cast concrete Irish handball alley and it’s…- Location: NY
- Dates: October 29 – November 29
IFPDA Print Fair, New York
The largest international art fair focused exclusively on the artistic medium of printmaking. It is noted for its historical depth, exhibiting works from the 16th…
- Location: NY
- Dates: November 02 – November 06
Death and Sensuality
A group exhibition with: Nina Amazing, Roisin Byrne, Alan Butler, Benjamin DeBurca, Breda Lynch, James McCann, Leo McCann, Tom Molloy, Not Abel and Alan Phelan. …
- Location: CA
- Dates: November 04 – December 03
Gerard Byrne
Dublin-based artist Gerard Byrne (b. 1969) works with photographic, video, and live art. Byrne is a recipient of a Performa Commission and will present a…
- Location: NY
- Dates: November 05 – November 06
Katie Holten: Streams of Consciousness
Streams of Consciousness: The Histories, Mythologies, and Ecologies of Water will investigate the nature of water and its relationship to humankind. Water is essential for…
- Location: KS
- Dates: November 10 – February 19
Clive Murphy: Deer Hoof Architecture #3 plus other new works
A new body of sculptures and drawing by New York based Irish artist Clive Murphy.
- Location: NY
- Dates: November 10 – December 06
Caroline McCarthy: Made-To-Measure
Caroline McCarthy presents a solo exhibition of new work at Parker’s Box Gallery, New York. Included amongst other works will be a site-specific installation constructed…
- Location: NY
- Dates: November 10 – December 23
Performa 11 | Dennis McNulty
Berlin-based Irish artist Dennis McNulty begins with an analysis of the movements of novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand’s eyes in a 1958 television interview. McNulty…
- Location: NY
- Dates: November 16 – November 18
Ronnie Hughes
Steve Turner Contemporary in Los Angeles presents a solo show of Ronnie Hughes’ work.
- Location: LA
- Dates: November 19 – December 17
Mother’s Tankstation at NADA Miami 2011
Each December in Miami, NADA runs a renowned art fair to explore new or underexposed art that is not typical of the “art establishment.” NADA’s…
- Location: FL
- Dates: November 30 – December 04
Andrew Duggan | Court_Pace_I
This Public Art Event is an Outdoor Projection on 51st Street between 10th and 11th ave. in New York City, from 6pm - 10pm on…
- Location: NY
- Dates: December 07 – December 07




