Carrying the Songs — Two Works Selected for Exhibition at Pulchri Studio, The Hague
This July, two of my works will be part of Carrying the Songs, an international exhibition held at Pulchri Studio in The Hague from 4 to 26 July 2026. The exhibition is a collaboration between the Embassy of Ireland in the Netherlands, Hamilton Gallery in Sligo, and Pulchri Studio, bringing together artists from both Ireland and the Netherlands whose work responds to a shared literary source.
The exhibition takes its name and theme from the poem "Carrying the Songs" by Irish poet Moya Cannon, originally published in her 2007 collection of the same name by Carcanet Press. The poem opens with the epigraph by folklorist Frank Harte — "Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs" — and unfolds as a meditation on how ordinary people carry memory, identity, and cultural inheritance through music across generations and landscapes. Cannon, born in County Donegal and now living in Dublin, is widely regarded as one of Ireland's foremost poetic voices, and her work is deeply concerned with the relationships between landscape, migration, history, and song.
It is a theme that resonated with me deeply, and one that I sought to engage with through two fine art prints: Between Shores and What Stone Remembers.
Both works are presented at 30 × 30 cm. While I typically produce works in varying sizes — both larger and smaller than this — it is the square format itself that stands out here, as I don't use it very often. This choice gives the pieces a more subdued quality compared to much of my other work. There is something about the square that feels contained and reflective, almost like a held breath or a fragment of a larger story that you carry with you.
Between Shores speaks to the liminal space that Cannon's poem inhabits — the places between origins and destinations, between what is left behind and what is carried forward. It is a theme that builds on and deepens the exploration I began in an earlier body of work, Another Place, where the sense of being suspended between worlds — neither fully here nor fully there — was central. With Between Shores, that same current runs through the image, but it is directed inward now, toward what is carried quietly rather than what is spoken aloud.
What Stone Remembers depicts a women's star constellation figure covered in moss against the backdrop of a stone wall. It is a black and white image, stripping away colour to foreground texture, form, and the quiet weight of geological time. The work symbolises long history and what remains fundamentally unknowable — layers of time that accumulate around us whether we perceive them or not. Stones are among the oldest carriers of memory — they outlast songs, outlast histories, outlast those who carve their names into them. By rendering this scene in monochrome, I wanted to emphasise that sense of deep, slow remembrance that stone embodies, and connect it to Cannon's exploration of what endures beneath the surface of human expression. The moss-covered constellation speaks to something ancient yet intimate — a celestial symbol returned to earth, hidden in plain sight, carrying stories we can no longer quite decipher but whose presence lingers all the same.
The opportunity to exhibit at Pulchri Studio is particularly meaningful. Founded in 1847, it is one of the oldest artists' societies in the Netherlands and occupies a historic building on the Lange Voorhout in The Hague. To show work there in dialogue with artists from Ireland and The Netherlands — in an exhibition that bridges two countries, two artistic communities, and a shared engagement with a remarkable poem — feels like being part of a conversation that extends well beyond the gallery walls.
Carrying the Songs runs from 4 to 26 July 2026 at Pulchri Studio, Lange Voorhout 15, The Hague. The exhibition is organised by the Embassy of Ireland in the Netherlands, Hamilton Gallery Sligo, and Pulchri Studio.
Click here for dates and times.
