Image: Lismore Castle, Limerick
Lismore Castle Arts will present 'Origins 2026' from 1 to 16 August at St Carthage Hall in Lismore, County Waterford, bringing together five emerging artists selected from undergraduate shows across Ireland. The exhibition is described by the institution as an annual project that presents early-career artists in a gallery context, alongside its programme of national and international artists.
The 2026 edition features Sophia Aftab, Ciana Clarke, Jodie Galvin, Sally Ryan and Emer McMahon. According to the exhibition materials, Aftab is associated with MTU Crawford College of Art & Design, Clarke with the National College of Art & Design, and Galvin, Ryan and McMahon with TUS Limerick School of Art & Design. The show spans sculpture, installation, photography, painting and archival processes.
Lismore Castle Arts says the artists’ practices draw on personal experience to explore identity, domestic space, perception and the ways images, objects and archives shape understanding of the self and the wider world. The exhibition text points to subjects including bedrooms, diaries, everyday rituals, assistive technologies, self-portraiture and acts of documentation, framing them as a route into broader social, technological and emotional realities.
Rather than presenting the ordinary as incidental, the exhibition positions it as a central source of artistic inquiry. The artists, according to the venue, reveal the significance of everyday spaces and objects and invite closer attention to the materials and environments that make up contemporary life. The available source material does not attribute individual works or specific mediums to each participant beyond the overall range of approaches named in the exhibition description.
An exhibition preview is scheduled for Saturday, 1 August, from 3 to 5 pm at St Carthage Hall. The exhibition will then be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 12 to 5 pm during the run. The venue information on the exhibition page lists St Carthage Hall, Lismore Co. Waterford.
'Origins' is framed by Lismore Castle Arts as part of its annual commitment to presenting emerging artists, and the 2026 edition continues that format with a selection drawn from undergraduate degree shows across the country. The announcement comes through the venue’s 'What’s On' listings and accompanying invitation material, which name the five artists and repeat the exhibition dates, preview time and opening hours at St Carthage Hall.
