Galway is the place to be this weekend for visual arts, with a host of new exhibitions opening in the city and county.

The work of 11 emerging artists will go on show this Saturday, August 28 and run until September 12 in Gallery 126 at Queen Street in Galway City Centre.

The show, Mainland, is the result of an open call to emerging artists by 126, the voluntarily led artist-run gallery that specialises in promoting challenging and experimental works.

The 11 artists’ work in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, video and photography. All of them created work based on the word Mainland and the responses were varied – critical, personal and humorous. These artists have commented on a term which is loaded with meaning, given Ireland’s history and its relationship with the UK and Europe. The artists also take a more ambiguous and international approach to the idea of place and life on the fringe. Mainland will run until September 12.

Lorg Enterprise Unit in 8 Ballybane Enterprise Centre, Ballybane is the venue for Place, a solo exhibition by Galway based artist Fiona Hession that will open this Friday at 7pm.

Fiona’s work so far has focused on the various faces of ‘home’ in modern society and what ‘home’ means on a personal level. She uses sculpture, print and textiles in her work. Fiona graduated with a first class honours degree in Fine Art Sculpture from GMIT and was awarded The RDS Printmaking Award 2010.

This is Fiona’s first solo exhibition and will be officially opened by Aideen Barry on Friday at 7pm. It will run until September 10.
Galway University Hospital is hosting a joint exhibition by artists John Lee and Triona Mac Giolla Rí which will be officially opened this Friday at 6.00pm by Dr Dom Colbert.

Triona, who is from Galway, now lives in Furbo. She holds an Honours Degree in Fine Art Painting from Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (2009) and is a member of Artspace Studios. In this exhibition Triona explores the theme of waiting, using collage and oil paint on traditional gesso on board. The paintings explore ideas on whether waiting is a time to be endured or a time to be enjoyed. In the last year Triona has exhibited widely across Ireland and Europe.

Clare-based John Lee specialises in figurative work, something which he attributes to his medical background. He studied classical figurative drawing and classical animation in Dublin in the 90s and worked for a number of years as a professional artist in the film industry in Ireland and Europe.

Oughterard is the venue for an exhibition of recent works by painter Richard Ward that will open this Saturday, August 28 at the Oughterard Tourist office in the town’s main street.

Richard Ward is best known for his wild life paintings around Connemara where he has lived for many years. His work can be found in many places – from natural history books to galleries and in private collection. He has exhibited in one-man shows all over the world, and was invited to show at the prestigious venue of the Explorers’ Club in New York.

Some of his commissioned work includes wild life postage stamps for An Post and a wildlife calendar for Bank of Ireland. His Oughterard show will run for two weeks.