Jan McCullough: I Took a Hammer in My Hand

Saturday 21 February – Monday 4 May 2026
Jan McCullough, Apprentice’s Maquette (Roof), Maker Unknown, detail from Photographic C-Print, 2025. Image courtesy of the Artist. | Jan McCullough: I Took a Hammer in My Hand | Saturday 21 February  – Monday 4 May 2026 | Butler Gallery | Image: Jan McCullough, Apprentice’s Maquette (Roof), Maker Unknown, detail from Photographic C-Print, 2025. Image courtesy of the Artist. | photo of two wooden constructions against a pale-blue cloth; each seems to be a sort of physical version of ‘that’ impossible-triangle drawing
Opening Reception Saturday 21 February, 3 – 5pm

Butler Gallery is very pleased to present a solo exhibition by the artist Jan McCullough.

Following a research residency in the Garden Studio at Butler Gallery in early 2025, Jan McCullough has developed a materially innovative and conceptually rich body of new photographic works and a monumental sculptural installation that reframe gestures of skill, labour and care, referencing Kilkenny’s architectural and manufacturing histories. The work was produced by the artist in partnership with local craftspeople and apprentices, drawing inspiration from the legacy of Talbot’s Inch – a nearby model village founded in the early 20th century to support skilled woodworkers.

Jan McCullough is an artist from Northern Ireland. Her work explores the human acts of construction, fabrication and DIY, and the communities of interest and place that form around them – employing the materials and languages associated with these activities to create sculptural installations, interventions and photographs.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include The Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (2024); NOUA, Bodø, Norway (2023); The Complex, Dublin (2023); PS², Belfast (2022); Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2022); Freelands Gallery, London (2021); The Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry~Londonderry (2020); Czong Institute for Contemporary Arts, South Korea (2019) and Filter Space, Chicago (2018).  She was Artist in Residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and Light Work in Syracuse, New York (2020-2021). McCullough has been recipient of the Making and Momentum [In Conversation with Eileen Gray] Artist Prize, Ireland (2022) and nominated for The Golden Fleece Award, Dublin (2025); The Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize, Austria (2023); Platform at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2018); The Infinity Award at The International Centre of Photography, New York (2016) and The Deutsche Borse Photography Prize at The Photographers Gallery, London (2016).

Image: Jan McCullough, Apprentice’s Maquette (Roof), Maker Unknown, detail from Photographic C-Print, 2025. Image courtesy of the Artist.
Saturday 21 February – Monday 4 May 2026
Butler Gallery
Evans’ Home
John’s Quay, Kilkenny
Telephone: +353 56 7761106
info@butlergallery.com
www.butlergallery.com
Admission / price: Free
Closed 13:00 - 14:00 until March.

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