27/04/2025
🎉 Launch Party
🎨 James Connolly Art Exhibition
🗓️ May 3rd
⌚ 6pm
We aunch the James Connolly Exhibition this Saturday, May 3rd at 6pm in Connolly Books ahead of a week-long run of events.
Earlier this year, the James Connolly Festival commissioned 8 artists, to create modern interpretations and portraiture of the trade union leader as part of this year's programme. The selection encompasses printmaking, graphic design, illustration, graffiti and visual art disciplines.
We wish to thank
& Amy Lauren for their contributions
Illustrator, Amy Lauren, reflected on a family connection for her design: “Connolly and the ICA are personal topics for me: my great-great-grandmother served in the ICA during the Rising, following her dad and brother's involvement in the 1913 Lockout… I'd like to create an illustrated tapestry featuring ICA symbols and a quote from Connolly on women's involvement: "None so fitted to break the chains as they who wear them." The piece will include a woman in uniform, symbolising my relative and celebrating women's contributions in a predominantly male sphere.”
While Limerick artist, Clare Blackwell, has created a screen-print of Dublin's O’Connel Street, with Connolly discreetly among the workers of our modern city, with the aim to “highlight the relevance of Connolly’s ideas to the present day and his continuing influence on Irish politics and workers’ rights. In his lifetime Connolly was often captured in a crowd or group and represented in ordinary ways, and didn’t believe in embedded class structures, therefore I hope to capture the essence of his ideas in this work"
Prints will be available for sale on the night and throughout the week.
For full schedule, listings and booking, see jamesconnollyfestival.com
