Midland artist's new exhibition to open at Luan Gallery
Athlone's Luan Gallery is to host a solo exhibition of newly-commissioned work by a Midlands artist.
‘VASSALDOMS UNITED’ by Eimear Walshe launches at 2pm this Saturday, April 26, with an exhibition walkthrough with the artist and curator Aoife Banks at 2.30pm. All are welcome to attend.
This is Walshe’s first solo exhibition in Ireland following their national representation at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. Born in Longford in 1992, Walshe’s work has long focused on representations of Ireland, and the local and international politics at play behind those representations, including questions of external optics and internal incoherencies.
The artworks featured in ‘VASSALDOMS UNITED’ are “concerned with places where the historic legacies and contemporary presence of empire are palpable – through law, bureaucracy, infrastructure, land, and language.” It comprises of works newly-commissioned by Luan Gallery in video, sculpture, sound, and vinyl installation.
The exhibition takes place across all three gallery spaces at the Athlone venue. Video installation ‘FREE STATE PANGS’ (2025) is an absurd and unfurling fable of administrative paper chase through state funding, the courts, and the health system. ‘AIRE’ (2025) wraps Luan’s Shannon-facing River Gallery in an image of Shannon Airport, a landscape through which Ireland is wedded to the US military, while ‘Study for the Athlone to Derry train (Queen Medb Line)’ (2025) outlines the artist’s fantasy of a high-speed local service train between Connaught and Ulster. This exhibition is funded by the Arts Council, with works commissioned by Luan Gallery and supported by the Arts Council Project Award. A programme of accompanying events will take place during the run of the exhibition. Information on the exhibition and upcoming events can be found at: www.athloneartsandtourism.ie/luan-gallery/ and on Luan Gallery’s social media channels.
‘VASSALDOMS UNITED’ will continue until Sunday, June 22. Luan Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 11 am to 5pm and from 12 pm to 5pm on Sundays.
Admission to the gallery is free, and guided tours are accessible to all but require advance booking.