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Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s work is rooted in an exploration of imperial legacy, human displacement and the Anthropocene. These intertwined subjects are approached through an associative use of narrative and a deeply crafted visual language that verges on the surreal.
For Lismore, Ní Bhriain presents Inscriptions VI, an exhibition bringing together new works in tapestry, print and installation. A large scale tapestry, The Muses V, forms the centrepiece of the exhibition. The Muses series (2018-25) is a pivotal body of work for the artist – the first created in her now-signature medium of Jacquard tapestry. The series references archival photographic portraits from the 1850s, from a genre once termed ‘orientalist photography’. Supposedly an authentic representation of culture, in reality these images existed as projections of western fantasies of the exotic and the erotic. Ní Bhriain works with collage to draw out the darkness behind the fantasy, fusing the portraits with imagery of excavated landscapes and damaged cityscapes. In bringing these disparate images together, the artist suggests intertwined histories of loss and cultural destruction, pointing to the ongoing fused legacies of colonial and industrial forces. In this exhibition, Ní Bhriain presents The Muses V in dialogue with sculptural and photographic elements, extending its motifs into a series of new material and pictorial relationships within the space of St. Carthage Hall.
The exhibition's title derives from the earliest known museological writing in the western world – Samuel Quiccheberg's Inscriptions or Titles of the Immense Theatre (1565), which details the practice of museums and the organisation of the world's objects into classes and subclasses. This was essentially an instruction manual for the creation of private collections, with an explicit Western imperialist agenda. Ní Bhriain's work since 2017 has made reference to this text, as she constructs an enigmatic visual vocabulary to explore the displacement embedded in familiar systems of representation.
Join us for two exhibition launches on Saturday 14 June:
3pm: Ailbhe Ní Bhriain at St Carthage Hall
4pm: Laura Fitzgerald at The Mill
Image: Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Inscriptions VI at Lismore Castle Arts: St Carthage Hall, 14 June - 10 August 2025, install view by Jed Niezgoda. Works courtesy the artist & Kerlin Gallery.
