Art

The best art exhibitions this week – from Winter Open Exhibition to Pop-Up 2017

Also, Self-Reflections in Banbridge, Turbulence in Sligo and Interfaces in The Burren

‘Dog on lakeshore’, acrylic on canvas, 60cm x 60cm Almha Roche, Pop-Up 2017 in Merrion Square, Dublin

Aidan Dunne's face
Aidan Dunne
Fri Dec 8 2017 - 05:00

Winter Open Exhibition 2017 + Plus a solo show by Oscar Dempsey.
Rue Red, South Dublin Arts Centre, Taillight, Dublin December 15-January 14 ruared.ie
Works selected from open submission from anywhere on the island of Ireland. Visitors can vote for the work they think merits the People's Choice Award, a cash prize of €1,000, sponsored by the Square Shopping Centre. Last year's Judge's Choice Award winner Oscar Dempsey's show features sculptures of strange, hybrid creatures inspired by hyenas and playing on the classical ideal of the male nude. He is interested in the notion of pride and the contest for dominance among male hyenas in a matriarchal social structure.

Self-Reflections: 40 years of Banbridge Art Club
Self-portrait project. FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio, 200 Newry Road, Banbridge, Co Down, Until February 17 femcwilliam.com A 40th anniversary celebration for the art club, with 20 self-portraits created in response to works from the National Self-Portrait Collection, housed at UL. Some 45 pieces by Basil Blackshaw, Jack B Yeats, David Crone and others, selected by members from the collection are also on view, together with Sculptures by FE McWilliam, Imogen Stuart, Bob Sloan and Eilis O'Connell.

Turbulence
Artists' responses to the refugee crisis. The Model, The Mall, Sligo, Until April 22 themodel.ie
Jack Butler Yeats was deeply affected by the displacement of people after the second World War. This show is built around some of his key paintings on the theme, shown in conjunction with contemporary works addressing migration today. In The Weight of Water, Elaine Hoey uses virtual reality technology to vividly convey the plight of refugees in the Mediterranean. Sarah Woods' film essay asks if, as Heideggar wrote in 1946, "Homelessness is coming to be the destiny of the world." Plus work by Rossella Biscotti, Gulsun Karamustafa, Naiza Khan, Eoin McHugh and Cengiz Tekin.

Interfaces
Tanya de Paor and Melissa Cayford. The Gallery, Burren College of Art, Newtown Castle, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare. Until January 23 burrencollege.ie
An exhibition by PhD candidate Tanya de Paor and MFA student Melissa Cayford. What they share is an interest in the connections between environment, the human body and the current, Anthropocene era. De Paor focuses on children's engagement with the natural world, employing sculpture, drawing, installation and lens-based media. Cayford is drawn by the ways location impacts on the body.

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Pop-Up 2017
The Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin Until December 15
The much-missed Paul Kane Gallery periodically pops up elsewhere on the square: in the IAA's handsome establishment. This pre-Christmas incarnation includes a line-up of gallery stalwarts, each with a distinctive, persuasive, enriching sensibility. That includes Veronica Belay, Megan Eustace, Mary A Fitzgerald, Iota Frenzy, Niall Kerrigan, Raisin McGeehan, Marc Reilly, Almha Roche, Wesley Trigs, Hazel Walker and more.