Kilkenny artist explores impact of rivers and their surrounds in upcoming exhibition

An exhibition by local artist, Bernadette Kiely, will take place at the The Tea Houses on Bateman's Quay later this month.

The opening of River(s) of no Return, curated by Shannon Carroll, will open at 3pm on Saturday, November 15 and will run daily until November 29 from 11.30am to 5.30pm.

The river flows through Bernadette Kiely’s work as it does through her life. Living on the banks of the River Nore, for over two decades she has borne witness to the shifting balance between water, land and those on its edges.

From her studio on the quayside in Thomastown, she paints, draws and documents the river’s changing surface. Attentive to flooding, her work documents the impact of water on daily life to the ways in which communities respond to it. Her practice is grounded in slow observation: walking the river, listening to it, tracing its presence and noticing how it connects to wider cycles of change, from local floods to wildfires and environmental crises across the world.

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More than seventy percent of the planet is covered with water. There is no doubt that water is a force that binds us all, with every community dependent on it. From the vastness of our oceans to the intimacy of local waterways, our relationship with water shapes how we live and how we imagine our future.

Kiely’s work reminds us that to know a river is not only to recognise its shape and flow, but to sense its power, fragility and interconnection with all life. Her paintings and drawings in this exhibition carry a deep reverence, inviting us to reimagine our relationship with the waters that hold and sustain us.
The work in this exhibition explores what it means to know a river.

The artist remarks how following the recent mass fish kill on the River Blackwater, poisoned in a pollution incident, the importance of this work could not be clearer. At a time when rivers across Ireland face mounting ecological threats, Kiely's work is not only a reminder, but an important call to action: to reconnect, to protect and to let the river flow through us all.

This exhibition is presented as part of [K]nore Your River, a community-powered season of events, art, science and storytelling along the River Nore, inviting everyone to explore how the river shapes our identity and how we can care for it together. This community project was organised and led by SEA School Studios, a mobile learning centre dedicated to exploring Science, Ecology and the Arts in the field, whose mission is to reconnect communities to the many layers of diversity and knowledge in their local landscapes.

The Tea Houses are situated by the River Nore in Kilkenny city centre and have been acquired by Kilkenny Arts Office to host an art programme that encourages a sense of community and active citizenship.