Shahid شَـاهِد
Diaa Lagan and Basil Al-Rawi
Friday 15 September - Monday 4 December 2023
Snáithe
Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh
Wednesday 8 October - Saturday 22 November 2025
Curated by Margarita Cappock
A preoccupation with landscape and the built environment has been unfolding across Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh’s painting practice for over two decades. Central to this inquiry are enigmatic depictions of manmade structures, both ancient and modern, industrial and domestic.
For her solo exhibition at The LAB Gallery, Ní Mhaonaigh presents a new series of small-scale works that build on the learning of earlier paintings, while chronicling some interesting departures. In tracing a landscape in flux, these works can be loosely categorised into three groupings: canvas studies of organic structures, read as floral, mossy, or tree-like; linear and geometric forms, etched into smooth, silvery backgrounds; and a set of
intricate works on board, incorporating vast asymmetrical arcs. Initially understood as the simple silhouettes of distant hills, these brooding forms become increasingly complex with further reading.
The exhibition will open on Wednesday, 8th October : 6pm - 8pm
Sinéad Ní Mhaonaigh (b 1977) is an artist based in County Wicklow. She graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2023, and a BA in Fine Art from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2001. In 2019, Ní Mhaonaigh was recipient of The HOTRON Award by VISUAL Carlow for outstanding work, and in 2010 was awarded the Hennessy Craig Scholarship. She was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize 2018 and the Marmite Prize for Painting 2016. Ní Mhaonaigh is represented by the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, and 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, New York. Ní Mhaonaigh was elected an Academician of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2023 and a member of Aosdána in 2024.
Recent solo exhibitions include Dwelling (2024) at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery; Deep Mapping: Unseen Landscapes at Solstice Arts Centre (2023); and Structure (2022) at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, New York. Ní Mhaonaigh exhibited as part of VOLTA New York in a solo presentation in 2016, and her work has been shown at major international art fairs, such as Art Market Budapest, Art Rotterdam, and VOLTA Basel. Ní Mhaonaigh’s paintings are held in many important public collections, including The Arts Council of Ireland (Dublin), Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), Ernesto Ventós (Barcelona), and O’Brien Art Collection (Chicago), as well as private collections across Ireland, Europe, and America.
A substantial publishing archive has developed around Ní Mhaonaigh’s painting practice over the years, with her exhibitions attracting significant media coverage, as well as critical and scholarly engagement through the inclusion of her work in a vast range of catalogues, books, journals, and periodicals. Ní Mhaonaigh is often invited to deliver public lectures or participate in conferences, and she is a regular contributor to Irish language broadcasting across radio and television.
