March 15th, 2023


Helena Gorey's most recent solo exhibition was 'Understory' at Highlanes Gallery and Custom House Gallery. Concentrating on richness of colour and texture the 'Understory' paintings attempt to give some sense of the beauty that can be seen in jewell like plants if you look closely into an uncut hedgerow at the height of summer. It continues her engagement with the natural world which has also been reflected in exhibitions such as 'Proscenium', Ashford Gallery, 2018, 'The Orchard' Butler Gallery 2013, 'Two Trees' The Dock 2006, 'The Blackcurrant Field' 2001 and 'Landscape & Memory' 1999 at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery.

Her work was recently selected for group exhibitions at Mark Borghi Gallery, New York and Contemporary Irish Arts Centre Los Angeles and exhibitions at Rathfarnham Castle and Farmleigh Gallery curated by Mark St. John Ellis. She won the Artworks Award at Visual Carlow in 2020 and received a Highly Commended award for Highlanes Gallery Open Submission in the same year. She curated The Overhanging Garden for AKA Kilkenny Arts Festival 2021 and her work is installed at Grangegorman Primary Care Centre as part of GDA public art program.

Public collections include The OPW, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Limerick City Gallery of Art, The Arts Council, Highlanes Gallery, Butler Gallery and The Glebe Gallery.

She studied at Limerick School Art & Design and is represented by Nag Gallery.

Tara Bergin has published two collections of poetry with Carcanet Press, This is Yarrow (winner of the Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry), and The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx (shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes).

Awards won by Tara Bergin:

  • Short-listed, 2018 Irish Times Poetry Now Award (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx)
  • Short-listed, 2017 Listowel Writers' Week Irish Poem of the Year ('Bride and Moth', published in The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx)
  • Short-listed, 2017 The T.S. Eliot Prize (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx)
  • Short-listed, 2017 The Forward Prize for Best Collection (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx)
  • Commended, 2017
  • Poetry Book Society Recommendation
  • (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx)
  • Winner, 2014 Shine/Strong Poetry Award
  • Winner, 2014 Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection
  • Short-listed, 2014 Irish Times Poetry Now Award

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