Irish artist to bring unique exhibition to Wales

A unique solo exhibition by Irish artist Eimear Walshe is coming to Wales.

Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff will host the work of the non-binary artist, who explores the impact of Irish land struggles in their art.

‘Mixed Messages from the Irish Republic’ is Eimear Walshe’s first UK solo show, featuring new and existing works – including Romantic Ireland, as presented at the Irish Pavilion for the 2024 Venice Biennale of Art.

Love and grief

In the exhibition, Walshe explores how Irish land struggles have shaped sexual politics, property ownership and power in Ireland today.

Through video and sculpture, the exhibition explores “love and grief for a land entangled in colonial legacies, revolution, rebellion and undelivered promise”.

Walshe’s work is “rooted in community and collaboration, playfully using forms of popular culture from infomercials to soaps to navigate “urgent issues of housing precarity, national identity and activism”.

‘Close neighbours’

Artist, Eimear Walshe said: “My first solo show in Wales will present a body of work that’s never been exhibited together before, including the work for Venice and some new work.”

“There’s much to learn between us close neighbours in terms of language, culture and history, it’s an inspiring context.”

“This show is an attempt to transmit across the water a message from and about Ireland, about the betrayal of high ideals, the playing of both sides, devotion and disappointment and revolutions unfinished”, they added.

Highlights

The exhibition will open with an evening celebration of Irish tunes, songs and dance with the artist and their collaborators Dylan Kerr, Róis, Seamas Hyland and Know Yourself, on February 28th at 8pm.

Highlights of the exhibition include video art such as, ‘The Land Question: Where the fuck am I supposed to have sex?’ (2020), where Walshe takes on the persona of a TV presenter to contemplate the “intimate desires and interactions that are entwined with the politics of land”.

Another video piece, LAND CRUISER (2022) tells the story of a pair embarking on a bleak road trip across the Irish housing market and through the geographies of 19th century land contestation.

Walshe’s new video work FREE STATE PANGS (2025) – about Irish bureaucracy and folklore and set between the provinces of Ulster and Connacht – will also be unveiled at the exhibition.

The exhibition will be open to the public Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-5pm, from 1 March – 25 May 2025, with free admission.