Irish Arts Review Spring 2025

A quarterly journal of fine art, design, architecture, photography, sculpture, heritage, decorative arts and crafts.

ÉIMEAR O’CONNOR delights in Petters’ botanical creations and her exquisitely fine verre eglomisé paintings, while paying tribute to her subtle art of activism. Now based in Belfast, Anushiya Sundaralingam addresses her displacement and exile from Sri Lanka and confronts the similar journeys of millions of refugees in her art. ‘More than any other motif, the boat is Sundaralingam’s emblem, her attribute,’ writes ISABELLA EVANGELISTI. Multi-awardwinning war photographer Seamus Murphy has returned to his native Ireland to photograph ‘The Republic’, in which STEPHANIE McBRIDE finds that his ‘poetic visual sense’ captures ‘both the strange and the familiar’; and PETER MURRAY views an exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy featuring artists’ engagement with Irish bogs over the past sixty years.

AIDAN DUNNE interviews artist Louise Neiland; JULIAN CAMPBELL charts the life and work of Dublin painter Joseph Malachy Kavanagh; and CIARA KERRIGAN highlights how art has been a companion and influence in poet Paul Durcan’s collections through the decades. TERENCE REEVES-SMYTH visits the romantic Florence Court in Co Fermanagh. Largely gutted by a fire in 1955, the house’s restoration by the National Trust is ‘one of the great success stories in the early history of building conservation in Ireland’; KATHRYN MILLIGAN considers the city street scenes and panoramas of artist Norah McGuinness; and ALISON FITZGERALD looks at some highly decorative gold and silver boxes from the 17th century to the early 19th century, created by craftsmen working in the narrow, cobbled streets of Dublin.

Elsewhere in the edition, there’s CHRISTINA KENNEDY on Fergus Feehily; NIAMH NicGHABHANN COLEMAN on Seán Cotter; and ELLA DE BÚRCA on Seiko Hayase. Usual features include the Diary of Events, Art at Auction by JOHN P O’SULLIVAN and Design Portfolio by FRANCES McDONALD. There are book reviews by Angela Griffith, Dolores Kearney, Frank J Hall and Karl Kinsella. Finally, Cecily Brennan’s Circadian Man takes the front cover of the spring edition. The photograph is included in the survey exhibition of Brennan’s work at the Glucksman, which CRISTÍN LEACH finds ‘satisfyingly select’. Brennan’s exhibition, ‘Six Men’, is running concurrently at the Taylor Galleries in Dublin.

Published by Irish Arts Review
Softcover
128 pages
300 x 230 mm
ISBN 9771649217104