Salon

Salon

Curated by Matthew Higgs

Anthony Banks, Karen Barbour, Margot Bergman, Casey Bolding, Lisa Brice, David Byrd, Gillian Carnegie, Diana Cepleanu, Billy Childish, Caroline Coon, Jane Corrigan, Andrew Cranston, Ann Craven, Verne Dawson, Brian DeGraw, Kaye Donachie, Simone Kennedy Doig, Denzil Forrester, Carole Gibbons, Huddie Hamper, Paul Housley, Brook Hsu, Merlin James, Chantal Joffe, Behrang Karimi, Adam Keay, Florian Krewer, Na Kim, Jennifer J. Lee, Bill Lynch, Alastair MacKinven, John Maclean, Elizabeth Magill, Alissa McKendrick, Noel McKenna, Stephen McKenna, Walter Price, Daisy Sheff, Amy Sheffer, Mike Silva, Pádraig Timoney, Caroline Walker.

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"Salon is a painting exhibition. It is also an exhibition of paintings. Some forty paintings, made by an intergenerational group of artists are staged throughout Lismore’s galleries in a theatrical mise-en-scène.

The exhibition’s title describes a formal device, where the paintings are choreographed in a salon-like hang, often in close proximity to one another – as well as alluding to the idea of the gallery as an animated, social space: literally a ‘salon’, a place where people might come together. The paintings are accompanied by an informal gathering of chairs – sourced from both private and public settings in the Lismore community – which visitors are encouraged to make use of.

The paintings in Salon at Lismore Castle Arts are mostly figurative or representational. They are mostly domestically-scaled. If a large-scale painting suggests perhaps a more public intent – for example the declarative ambitions of “history painting” – then the works in Salon operate instead in a more intimate fashion, almost insisting upon closer scrutiny from the viewer.

The artists who made these works ultimately have very little in common. Several explore genres such as landscape, portraiture or the still-life, yet together they do not represent a school or an art historical tendency. Several could be described as outliers or even mavericks – certainly some embrace folk or outsider mannerisms in their approaches. The works are presented in such a way that preserves each artist’s autonomy whilst simultaneously allowing them to be in concert with one another, to create a polyphony of determinedly distinct voices".

- Matthew Higgs, February 2026.

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The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive programme of events, talks, screenings and a far-reaching learning programme. A catalogue will be published in Summer 2026 to accompany the exhibition.

Image: Stephen McKenna, Clouds, 2014. Oil on canvas, 50 x 70 cm. Image courtesy of the Stephen McKenna Estate and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin. Photo: Lee Welch