13 January — 25 February 2020, Tuesdays
Want to get an insight into a leading artists’ studio complex and contemporary art gallery in Dublin? Would you like to meet artists and new people, get involved in hands-on workshops and attend talks exploring a range of approaches to art-making?
Apply to our Making Connections Winter School, which takes place across seven Tuesday evenings between January and February 2020. Each week will see a different activity such as a talk, discussion, workshop or studio visit, facilitated and led by TBG+S staff, artists and invited guests.
The Winter School is an opportunity to expand your ideas of what art practice can be, learn about the various stages of the art-making process - from the studio to the gallery - and explore a diverse range of current and stimulating topics. Create your own art, join the conversation, and be part of the TBG+S community.
Scroll down for the week-by-week schedule and full details.
The Winter School is for adults and is free of charge.
10 participants will be selected from an open call.
Deadline for applications: Sunday 5 January 2020
The first Winter School session will be a welcome evening with tea, coffee and refreshments, a chance for the group to get to know one another and learn about the history and activities of Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. Participants will receive a tour of our current exhibitions, Tragodía by Tai Shani and Gerard Byrne's project in the Atrium, after gallery closing hours. The group will visit Marcel Vidal in his studio at TBG+S.
Marcel Vidal holds a membership studio at TBG+S. He is the recipient of the RHA Hennessy Craig Award (2019), The Golden Fleece Main Award for Visual Art (2019), Wicklow Arts Grant (2019), and was shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize (2019). He features in 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow, by Kurt Beers, (Thames & Hudson, 2019). Recent exhibitions include WHITE NOISE, Futures, RHA Dublin (2018); SILVERFISH, The Dock Arts, Carrick on Shannon Leitrim, (2018); Donut, Atrium Space, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, (2017/2018) Selected group exhibitions include, Hennessy Craig Award Shortlist exhibition, RHA, Ireland, (2019); National Gallery of Ireland Zurich Portrait Prize Shortlist exhibition, (2019); 189th RHA Annual Exhibition, RHA, Ireland, (2019); Syntonic State, Tulca, Galway, (2018); Hannah Fitz / Áine McBride / Daniel Rios Rodriguez / Marcel Vidal, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, (2017). Marcel is represented by Kerlin Gallery Dublin Ireland.
This workshop focuses on the concept of 'process' through the experimental and haptic mediums of monoprint and low-fi stop motion animation.
Participants will be led through a process-orientated, improvisatory and material-based mode of creative enquiry through physically layering, masking and manipulating inks, textures and surfaces, yielding a series of one-off prints. Parallel to this, participants will be encouraged to develop a body of photographs of the multiple stages of image development. These will be integrated into stop motion animations, providing a sequential insight into participants individual and experimental processes.
* Participants will require a smartphone and will be asked to download a specific stop motion app in advance of workshop.
Chloe Brenan holds a project studio at TBG+S, and has recently undertaken residencies at NUI Galway Centre for Astronomy and Galway Arts Centre as part of the Royal Astronomical Society’s Bicentennial Celebrations (RAS), The Guesthouse Project in Cork and with experimental sound net lab Audiotalaia in Navarra, Spain. Her works have been exhibited in numerous national and international exhibitions including Galway Arts Centre; The Library Project, Dublin; Catalyst Arts, Belfast, The Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design, Tallinn; as well as in print at I Never Read Art Book Fair, Basel; Stockholm Art Book Fair, Sweden, Tokyo Art Book Fair, Japan. She is a recipient of an ArtLinks 2019 Artist Bursary from Carlow Arts Office and TBG+S 2019 Project Studio Award.
This workshop will consider the evolution of an artwork, from sourcing material to its production and the cultural hierarchy of display.
Sibyl Montague’s practice includes sculpture, video and installation. A graduate of Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, Montague is the recent recipient of the IMMA 1000 residency award at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2019). Additional awards include laureate of the l'Institut Francais Residency Programme at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France (2018), Emerging Artist Award, Wexford Arts Centre (2012) and Oriel Davies Open, Wales (2011). Recent presentations include 'Display, Link & Cure' Complex, Dublin (2019); Practice curated by Alice Butler, New Spaces, Derry; Saplings, Pallas Projects, Dublin; My Fears of Tomorrow are Melting Away, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Her moving image work was commissioned for the collection of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania.
In this workshop, participants will work with language and writing to produce a series of visual text works, moving between digital and analogue processes. Technology holds our memories and the various versions of ourselves that exist in the web 2.0 world. Through a procedural writing process, participants will describe their digital lives, past and present, through a series of text works and word drawings on paper, using information from our social media feeds – images, links or whatever you happen to come across. These text works and word drawings will be assembled and collected into a final collaborative zine.
Jonathan Mayhew was the 2019 TBG+S and HIAP (Helsinki International Artist Programme) Residency Exchange awardee. Mayhew uses poetry, literature, technology and theory to manipulate physical and invisible materials, creating works in a variety of media. He is interested in how we think about data, how we use it and how it uses us; and how fiction is blurring into reality. Recent exhibitions include: ‘The wind steals music & brings it to me’, Pallas Projects, Dublin, 2019; ‘Scaffold’, Bomb Factory London, 2019; ‘digital_self’, Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2018; ‘Zurich Portrait Prize 2018’ National Galley of Ireland; ‘Sørlandsutstillingen, ’ Kristiansand Kunsthall, Norway, 2017; ‘I Wanted to Write a Poem’ Wexford Arts Centre, 2017.
Mairead O’hEocha’s work has been represented in several acclaimed solo exhibitions including The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, (2015 and 2011); Butler Gallery, Kilkenny (2011), and mother’s tankstation, Dublin (2016, 2012, 2008). O’hEocha’s first international solo exhibition took place in mother’s tankstation, London (2018). Mairead O’hEocha’s paintings have been represented in a number of important group exhibitions and publications that have explored contemporary painting practices, including Slow Painting (curated by Gilly Fox and Martin Herbert), initiated by the Hayward Gallery Touring Programme (2019-2020), A Painter’s Doubt, Salzberger Kunstverein (2017), and Vitamin P3: New Perspectives in Painting (published by Phaidon, 2016).
Marion Milner (1900-1998) was a distinguished British psychoanalyst, educationalist, autobiographer, and artist. Her writing is hard to describe and pin down as she touches on myriad disciplines and has a disregard for previous academic formats. This talk will aim to introduce some of her ideas and discuss her legacy.
Aleana Egan is a visual artist currently holds a membership studio at TBG+S. Recent projects include New People Konrad Fischer Gallery Duesseldorf (2020) From Narrow Provinces Cample Line, Scotland, staring forms TBG+S, Spitze, Farbvision, Berlin (2019)
Margaret Boyle Spelman PhD is a Registered Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and a Chartered Clinical and Counselling Psychologist and Organisational Psychologist in Private Practice in Dublin, Ireland. Currently working on an edited volume (The Milner Tradition) of his closest collaborator, Marion Milner, Margaret’s previous publications include a volume entitled Winnicott's Babies and Winnicott's Patients - psychoanalysis as Transitional Space and another The Evolution of Winnicott's Thinking - A Study of the growth of Psychoanalytic Thought. She has also co-edited The Winnicott Tradition (along with Prof. Frances Thomson-Salo).
The Winter School will be rounded up with an informal feedback session, reflecting upon the past six weeks with Learning + Public Engagement Curator, Róisín Bohan. We will discuss our favourite parts of the Winter School, what new things we learned, any challenges we faced, and what we envision for TBG+S.
15 May 2026, 4–5.45pm
Exhibiting artist Rebecca Moccia and Marta Bianchi from Care of, Milan will host a curated series of short video’s followed by an artist talk and introduction to the Gallery exhibition Nostalgism.
16 May 2026, 11.30am–1pm
An experimental drawing workshop with artist Shane Malone-Murphy exploring alternative ways of mapping experience through mark-making.
16 May 2026, 2-4pm
Drawing Room is a combined studio visit and workshop with visiting studio artist John Graham, emphasising drawing as location.
