NCAD Works, the end-of-year show for National College of Art and Design graduates, is not a typical exhibition of student work. Instead, it offers a snapshot of Ireland’s artistic future. It’s well worth experiencing in person at Thomas Street, Dublin.
The artists tackle significant social questions, climate concerns, and cultural shifts with varying approaches. Beyond aesthetics, there is a real sense of genuine engagement with the world and current events.
In print and painting, Darcy Colleran’s piece, It’s a Good Day When You Get It. A Bad Day When You Don’t, is captivating. Layers of paint and embedded texts resemble intimate diary entries, creating a personal connection.
Ruth Carr, a recent fine-art graduate, presents Spent Sacks, a powerful and raw exploration of memory, identity, womanhood, childbirth, the past and the future.
Molly Buí Hennessy’s Masked and Soaking in the Rust and Saliva of Thirsty Cattle introduces viewers to a world simultaneously rural and unsettling, blending familiarity with a distinct unease. She explores, in her own words, “the act of wondering”.
Other notable works include contributions from painting graduate KB Cleary, print graduate Clare Twomey and sculptor Helen Doherty. Doherty’s work MeanTime: A Short Encyclopaedia of Contested Words contains responses in different formats to words “banned” by the current Trump administration.
