Engage Art Studios are thrilled to announce our exciting new solo exhibition by JAMES WELLWOOD as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2026.
AS IT DARKENS is curated by MARK O’GORMAN And will launch on :
Sunday, July 12th at 12pm
Engage Art Studios, Churchfields, Salthill.
The exhibition will run until July 26th, 2025. For more information visit giaf.ie
Engage Art Studios is pleased to present As It Darkens, a mixed-media exhibition by Kilkenny-based visual artist James Wellwood, curated by Mark O’Gorman, as part of the Galway International Arts Festival.
Exploring themes of memory, transience, and place, the exhibition draws on Wellwood’s ongoing engagement with the rural landscape of the Kilkenny dairy farm where he grew up. Through painting and sculptural processes, familiar locations are reimagined through the shifting perspectives of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, considering how place is encountered both physically and psychologically.
Wellwood’s process begins with observation and the gathering of source material, informed by the concept of ‘soft fascination’, a relaxed state of attention that engages interest without demanding focused effort. Through this process, he explores how spaces are experienced through movement and repeated encounters rather than from a single fixed viewpoint. The resulting works consider how memory, perception, and time shape our understanding of place, reflecting not only what we see, but how a place is gradually experienced and remembered.
The exhibition runs from 15th–26th July, open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am–4pm (closed Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays). The exhibition launch will take place on 12 July at 12pm. The exhibition features a commissioned text by artist Laura Fitzgerald which can be read here. James and Laura will discuss the work and the themes of the exhbition at an event on July 16th, between 2pm and 3pm, at our Churchfields gallery space in Lower Salthill. We look forward to seeing you there.
About the Artists
James Wellwood (b. 1999) is a Kilkenny-based visual artist. He graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Painting) from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2024. In recent years, his practice has become increasingly multidisciplinary, working across painting, drawing, and sculptural processes.
His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at The Hunt Museum and Ormston House (Limerick); Outset Gallery and 126 Artist-Run Gallery (Galway); GOMA (Waterford); Dunamaise Arts Centre (Portlaoise); and iP12 House (Chania, Crete).
Laura Fitzgerald is an Irish artist based in Inch, Co. Kerry. She is a graduate of both the National College of Art & Design, Dublin and Royal College of Art, London. She is a recipient of the Visual Arts Bursary Award (Arts Council of Ireland) for 2025–26. In 2024 she was awarded the Markievicz Award to work with the archive of Flora Kerrigan. In 2023, she completed a three-month residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
https://laurafitzgerald.ie/
About the curator:
Mark O’Gorman is the inaugural curator and producer of visual art at The Complex, a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Dublin's north inner city, since 2018. The exhibition programme focuses on commissioning site-specific work with a prolonged developmental process and conversational approach with artists, who are carefully brought together in relation to one another. Mark has curated exhibitions and produced events featuring artists Olga Balema, Jeremy Deller, Vivienne Dick, Jaki Irvine, Sean Lynch, Dennis McNulty, Locky Morris, and Anne Tallentire. He co-curated Fly Floor in 2023 with Niamh O’Malley in partnership with the Ireland tour of Ireland at Venice at The Complex. He consistently guest lectures at the National College of Art & Design, Technological University Dublin, and the Institute of Art, Design and Technology. His writing has appeared in Paper Visual Art and The Visual Artists’ News Sheet.
@mark_o_gorman