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Ailbhe Ní Bhriain: The Dream Pool Intervals

Thursday 27 March – Sunday 28 September 2025





Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Interval III, 2024, Jacquard tapestry, cotton, wool, silk, Lurex. Collection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery









 










 | Ailbhe Ní Bhriain: The Dream Pool Intervals | Thursday 27 March – Sunday 28 September 2025 | Hugh Lane Gallery | Image: Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Interval III, 2024, Jacquard tapestry, cotton, wool, silk, Lurex. Collection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery | apparently photographic source material, most of it black-and-white and taken a long while ago, collaged in a way that makes the scene depicted – two people possibly, possibly sitting at a table that has a white tablecloth on it … or maybe three people … at first glance it seems likely to be coherent, but on inspection nothing coheres – there are too many hands, no faces, a hyena bottom left, someone sitting on the floor but we just see their arms wrapped around what may be their dress, there seem to be feet in shoes over on the right, but no more of that figure, and so on; it seems to be some sort of interior scene from the American West

Thylacines, snakes and birds of prey are the unlikely animals that navigate fractured environments in the work of Ailbhe Ní Bhriain. Through ancient tales of the mythic underworld, and recurring images of stalactites and stalagmites, we experience scenes set in caves and tunnels populated by ethnic stereotypes.

‘Ní Bhriain seeks to locate our growing anxieties of crises within an odd, orphic world, where colonial and industrial legacies are fused with the consciousness of our current moment’
– Michael Dempsey.

A new series of works created for Hugh Lane Gallery, The Dream Pool Intervals is a meditation on the spectre of loss that haunts the contemporary imagination. Images of rehearsed poses and gestures, appropriated from the early days of photography (an era designed to project stability, status, worldliness and superiority) are assembled by Ní Bhriain in the works we encounter. They belie the individuals represented and concentrate instead on the construct of the medium of photography itself.

‘in the tapestries are images of destroyed architecture – gathered from multiple sources, icons of war and climate disaster that seem to define this period’
– Ailbhe Ní Bhriain.

Five large-scale jacquard tapestries form the exhibition’s centre and create a journey through emblematic iconography of past colonial repression and early technological aspirations. Powerful and eloquent, they convey complex political and dynastic messages that resist singular interpretation and echo the fragmented nature of how information is gathered and absorbed in our subconscious.

The Dream Pool Intervals is curated by Michael Dempsey, Head of Exhibitions, Hugh Lane Gallery, and will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.

Link to notification source
Image:
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Interval III, 2024, Jacquard tapestry, cotton, wool, silk, Lurex. Collection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery
 

Thursday 27 March – Sunday 28 September 2025
Hugh Lane Gallery
Parnell Square North
Dublin 1
Telephone: + 353 1 222 5550
info.hughlane@dublincity.ie
www.hughlane.ie
Opening hours / start times:
Tuesday 10.00 - 18:00
Wednesday 10.00 - 18:00
Thursday 10.00 - 18:00
Friday 10.00 - 17:00
Saturday 10.00 - 17:00
Sunday 11.00 - 17:00
Admission / price: Free

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Associated sites
  • Syndetic Art
  • Circa
  • Pocket Satire
  • Leila Anglade
  • Graphic Studio Gallery
  • Gwen O’Dowd
  • John Kelly: Artist
  • Mary Kelly
  • Roderick Ford
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