Artist partners with local craftspeople in Kilkenny exhibition

Butler Gallery will present a solo exhibition by renowned artist Jan McCullough which will open later this month and will give a unique insight into Kilkenny’s rich and varied architectural and manufacturing histories.

The work was produced by the artist in partnership with local craftspeople and apprentices, drawing inspiration from the legacy of Talbot’s Inch - a nearby model village founded in the early 20th century to support skilled woodworkers.

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Following a research residency in the Garden Studio at Butler Gallery in early 2025, Jan McCullough has developed a materially innovative and conceptually rich body of new photographic works and a monumental sculptural installation that reframe gestures of skill, labour and care, referencing Kilkenny’s architectural and manufacturing histories.

Jan McCullough is an artist from Northern Ireland. Her work explores the human acts of construction, fabrication and DIY, and the communities of interest and place that form around them - employing the materials and languages associated with these activities to create sculptural installations, interventions and photographs.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include The Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (2024); NOUA, Bodø, Norway (2023); The Complex, Dublin (2023); PS², Belfast (2022); Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (2022); Freelands Gallery, London (2021); The Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry~Londonderry (2020); Czong Institute for Contemporary Arts, South Korea (2019) and Filter Space, Chicago (2018).
McCullough was Artist in Residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and Light Work in Syracuse, New York (2020-2021). She has also been recipient of the Making and Momentum [In Conversation with Eileen Gray] Artist Prize, Ireland (2022) and nominated for The Golden Fleece Award, Dublin (2025); The Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize, Austria (2023); Platform at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2018); The Infinity Award at The International Centre of Photography, New York (2016) and The Deutsche Borse Photography Prize at The Photographers Gallery, London (2016). The artist graduated with a first class honours in Photography from the University of Ulster in 2013.

The exhibition opens on February 21 from 3pm to 5pm. All Welcome.

For more information at upcoming exhibitions at the Butler Gallery see www.butlergallery.ie