Courthouse Gallery & Studios
The Summer Open Exhibition at Courthouse Gallery & Studios has opened in Ennistymon, bringing together a diverse selection of contemporary artwork from artists across Ireland and beyond. Known for its commitment to supporting both emerging and established practitioners, the annual exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to encounter a wide range of approaches to painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking and mixed media within one of Ireland's most respected regional arts venues.
Among the works selected for this year's exhibition is Inside Is A Woman (2026), which makes its public debut as part of the Summer Open.
Guest Curator for this year’s Summer Open, Sarah Fuller had this to say about the works submitted: “There was so much excellent work to choose from, I wondered where to start. Reflecting on the context we are living in, I jotted down the first words that came to mind. It didn’t make for a positive list.
“Complex, fragmented, polarised, war, displacement, confusion, distrust, disconnection. The question of how it feels when home is far away in a place you may never see again. What is it like to have come from a place of war? What is it like to be an outsider? I was looking for artists whose work was concerned with, or communicated, a sense of these tensions, either directly or indirectly, through the integrity of practice and through what the image conveyed visually.
“My emphasis was on representing a diversity of perspectives: age, ethnicity, disability, LGBTQ+ identities and both emerging and established artists. The selected works for this exhibition present multiple perspectives.
“These works suggest a counter-narrative: connection, belonging, home, hope, colour, joy, diversity, protection, togetherness, trust, community. Our humanity.”
Inside Is A Woman - Giclée Archival Print on PhotoRag. 1/10
Created using a long-exposure photographic process, Inside Is A Woman continues Robyn Daly's ongoing exploration of the female figure within domestic and architectural spaces. Set within the interior of a derelict Irish house, the image resists the conventions of traditional portraiture, where identity is often tied to facial recognition and fixed appearance. Instead, the figure appears in a state of movement and transformation, shaped by the interaction of light, time and the body itself.
“I don't think of photography as capture,” said Daly. “I'm interested in what happens when light, time and movement interact with the body to create something more fluid and expansive. The resulting images often appear to sit somewhere between photography and painting, reflecting my interest in creating new visual possibilities for representing lived experience."
The chemistry of light and time reveals unseen interior worlds beneath outward appearance.
The title, Inside Is A Woman, operates on multiple levels. It refers not only to the physical presence of a female figure within the image but also to the unseen interior worlds that exist beneath outward appearance. And that ties in to Daly’s central practice: expressing lived experience rather than a static representation of it.
The exhibition runs from 19th June to 14th August 2026 at Courthouse Gallery & Studios, Ennistymon, County Clare.
