Overview
126 Artist-Run Gallery & Studios is delighted to present State of Play, a solo exhibition of work by Darran McGlynn, as part of the Galway International Arts Festival 2025. This new body of work incorporates traditional techniques of sculpture with text, producing a commentary on societal conditions, material and environmental histories. Viewers are invited to engage with personal and collective narratives that affect our place in the globalised landscape.
State of Play opens a dialogue on networks of communication and control, encouraging public discourse to lean towards the weight of truth and interrogate what is seen, repeated, left unsaid. Narratives are negotiated as the pulse of the Earth bears witness to flickers of humans being. State of Play leaves space for the possibility of what is still unfolding within this utopian ruin.
“‘being’ is merely a continual ‘has been’, a thing lives by denying and destroying and contradicting itself.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche.
Darran McGlynn is a member of Artspace Studios in Galway. His multidisciplinary practice combines social and philosophical reflection, contrasting contemporary circumstances with deep time.
Curated by Kate McSharry.
EVENTS
Saturday 26th July, 2pm | Join Darran McGlynn, Kate McSharry, and Valeria Ceregini for an in-conversation and exhibition walkthrough at 126 Artist-Run Gallery & Studios.
State of Play is a solo exhibition by Darran McGlynn at 126 Artist-Run Gallery & Studios, , showcasing new work that combines traditional sculpture and text to explore societal, material, and environmental histories. Curated by Kate McSharry.
This Too Will Pass is a group exhibition at Interface Inagh in Connemara, featuring work by Darran McGlynn. This exhibition explores the transient nature of life and the interconnectedness between humans and the Earth. Curated by Valeria Ceregini.
No booking is required for this event. There will be seating available. Please email contactg126@gmail.com with any access requirements.
Sunday 27th July, 12.15pm | Art Beats, writing workshop led by art writer Meadhbh McNutt and poet Fiachna Quinn, in response to Darran McGlynn’s State of Play.
Meadhbh and Fiachna invite participants to delve into underlying themes from McGlynn’s exhibition including material histories, time and globalisation. Together, participants will experiment with narrative structure and word play, exploring texts by writers such as Allan Sekula, Ciarán Finlayson, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Wendy Erskine.
The workshop will run for approximately 2 hours. Ages 18+
The workshop is free but places are limited! Please book in advance through Eventbrite, and email contactg126@gmail.com to be added to a waitlist.
About the Writers
Meadhbh McNutt (meadhbhmcnutt.com) is a Galway-based artist and writer who is interested in ways of connecting and belonging in the fragmented Information Age. She has exhibited in Ireland, the UK, Hungary, Poland and Hong Kong, with writing and photography appearing in Tank Magazine, Circa Art Magazine, Mirror Lamp Press, HeadStuff and other publications.
As a freelance writer, Meadhbh has worked with organisations such as the Douglas Hyde Gallery, TU Dublin School of Creative Arts, Cúirt International Festival of Literature and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture. In 2020, she was awarded the VAI/DCC Art Writing Award. She currently works to amplify research in business, law and public policy as a Communications Officer at the University of Galway.
Fiachna Quinn is a poet based in Galway who was recently awarded a residency at Áras Éanna, Inis Oírr. His work was exhibited at 126 Artist-Run Gallery in 2024 and has been published in journals. Fiachna has facilitated multiple workshops and performed extensively.
Artist’s Statement
Darran McGlynn’s practice is multi-disciplinary and incorporates sculpture, text, installation and printed media, often combining these elements together. He is interested in investigating the contemporary condition – contemporary Being – in the globalised landscape. Peering through lenses of history, culture, psychology, philosophy and politics, and combining this with an interest in concepts of time, Darran creates works that juxtapose the traditional and contemporary. He contrasts materials such as marble, steel, neon and animal skin in a way that speaks of the contemporary condition – isolated, lost and searching for meaning – but is firmly rooted in traditional materials and methods of working. The materials – found, salvaged, cut, forged – all show signs of other uses, previous lives and past labour. They hold enduring familiarity yet are presented in novel ways. Leaning into the natural weight balance of the materials takes them to the brink of collapse, creating (literally) tangible tension in the air. Three hundred million year old fossils from a field in Galway, that were formed on the seabed, when Ireland was located on the Equator, are suspended on top of suspension coils. Chinese digital components are set in harmony into ancient Italian marble from Michelangelo’s quarry. Hot pink neon flashes hard lessons. Each work is a standalone piece but he develops his exhibitions in a site-specific, installation based format that forces the hand (and feet) of the viewer by careful placement, lighting, and manipulation of space. Darran aims to situate himself, the art and the audience together as all mutually constitutive of a contemporary culture, rather than at one remove, making art as a form of exterior study.
Text plays a central role either as sculpture or print and you might say he is known for his one liners. There’s an underlying characteristic humour – a dark playfulness – informed by his own experiences and observations merged with a deeper social and philosophical reflection that is somehow gentle and simultaneously quite savage. The narratives operate on several levels at the same time. Exposing multiple standpoints at once in a single piece of work, or with a single word, causes a sense of contradiction and question. There’s a deep dive into personal and collective psyche and identity underway that aims to highlight our commonalities and fallibilities.
Image Details
Hide, 2025, bronze, steel, Sligo limestone, Connemara marble, blue onyx, Carrara marble, dyed sheepskin.
Seek, 2025, bronze, steel, Sligo limestone, Connemara marble, blue onyx, Carrara marble, dyed sheepskin.
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OPENING HOURS
Launching 5pm 13th July.
Open 12-6pm everyday from 14th-27th July.
Closed Mon 28th and Tues 29th July.
Open Wed 30th July-Sun 3rd August from 12-6pm.
