South Tipperary Arts Centre

31/05/2026

Artist Spotlight! Austin McQuinn's 'Richard Bide-the-Bent' and 'Alice',- Lambda print on Dibond (dim. 91.5 x 60.8 cm) On loan from the Butler Gallery Collection. Delighted to have these works in the house as part of STAC at 30.

Austin McQuinn’s (b.1967, Co.Kerry) recent solo exhibition, Mountains, Fall On Us, at Limerick City Gallery of Art 2024 amalgamated new paintings with live art performance and sculpture in a series of ambitious installations across the four main galleries at LCGA and followed with a full-colour Publication. His practice is defined by these deeply researched bodies of work creating solo exhibitions; in Project, Dublin; in Butler Gallery, Kilkenny Castle: DCP, San Francisco: and more recently at The Source, Thurles and at STAC in Tipperary, where he lives and works. For STAC Chapel, he manifested a 24hr live art event curated by Helena Tobin. His doctoral expertise in live art practice and critique is expressed in his book, Becoming Audible, on sound, animality and performance, reissued in paperback this year by Penn State University Press.

29/05/2026

Artist Spotlight! John Burke's 'Musical Table' from 1996; painted steel (dim. 50 x 55 37cm). On loan from the collection of the Arts Council/ An Comhairle Ealaíone. Delighted to have this work in the house as part of STAC at 30.

Born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, in 1946 (d.2006), John Burke studied at the Crawford School of Art in Cork, and in London with Brian Kneal.

His work featured in all the major Irish group exhibitions, as well as international shows like Artists 77, New York (1977); 18 European Sculptors, Munich (1978); Sculpture Européenne, Brussels (1979); A Sense of Ireland, London (1980); and C.A.N., Cork (1985), where he won the sculptor prize. He has held solo shows at Trinity College, Dublin; the Ulster Museum, Belfast; the David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin; and an open-air show in Cork city. He won the Cork Arts Society Award (1967), a Macaulay Fellowship (1970), and the Alice Hammerschlag Travel Award (1979).

He was instrumental in defining sculptural practice in Ireland during the 1970s. He juxtaposed simple geometric shapes to form abstract compositions, and employed colour to soften and disguise unwanted elements of the metal. Burke taught at the Crawford School of Art and counted among his pupils Eilis O’Connell, Vivienne Roche, Maud Cotter and Jim Buckley. He was a member of Aosdána.

28/05/2026

Oooh look, another throwback Thursday - this time last year when we hosted the WAAG symposium which looked at the legacy of WAAG on Saturday 10th May 2-25 at STAC Chapel. This one-day symposium focused on themes around the legacy of WAAG, the power of collective agency and the importance of archives. Speakers included Sarah Kelleher, Pauline Cummins, Louise Walsh, Catherine Marshall, Eve Olney, Deirdre O'Mahony, Niamh Moriarty and Siobhan Geoghegan.

This year on Saturday 30 of May we'll host the first of our STAC Talks at STAC Chapel - 'What is an Arts Centre Anyway?' Link in bio for further info.


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27/05/2026

26/05/2026

Artist Spotlight! Aideen Barry's Monachopsis Drawings, #10, 36, 35, 21, 45, 14, 2019 Digital Print on Hanemuhle Fine Art Photorag paper, Ed. 2/25 35 x 42.5 cm (framed). On loan form the Limerick City Gallery of Art Permanent Collection. Privileged to have thee works currently on show here as part of STAC at 30.

Aideen Barry is an Irish visual artist whose diverse international practice spans filmmaking, performance, sculpture, installation, experimental lens-based media, drawing, and sound. Her work employs visual trickery to create a heightened suspension of reality, often exploring themes centred on sinister systems and social critique. Barry’s collaborative and intersectional approach has led her to work with a broad spectrum of creatives. She engages with artists, historians, scientists, and activists to produce large-scale interventionist artworks that transcend conventional visual and pop culture with an attempt to democratise the access to visual culture and art lingualism. One of her most notable projects includes the feature film *Klostės*, created in collaboration with nearly a thousand Lithuanian citizens, which is now part of the National Collection at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and contributed to Kaunas earning UNESCO World Heritage status. Barry’s work has been exhibited globally at prestigious venues such as the Bangkok Art Biennial, BFI London, Salzburg Kunstverein, CAC Málaga, NASA Kennedy Space Center, and the Banff Centre in Canada, among many others. A member of Aosdána and the Royal Hibernian Academy, her art is held in major public and private collections worldwide. Barry is originally from Cork but lives with her children in the Silvermines in North Tipperary.

22/05/2026

📆 Saturday 30th May

📍 STAC Chapel

⏰️ 2pm

Our second panel discussion as part of our 'STAC Talks' event will take place at 2pm with Aideen Barry, Ursula Burke, Sheenagh Geoghegan, Austin McQuinn & Bridget O’Gorman as part of 'STAC Talks' under the heading 'Making art in a regional context'.

The 'Making art in a regional context’ panel will be moderated by Aideen Barry. All artists are part of our ‘STAC at 30’ exhibition and all now operate from various locations in rural Tipperary, removed from the usual ‘centres’ of art production (i.e. cities). The range for their careers and practices, puts them in a wonderful position to discuss the challenges of making art in a rural/de-centred location, to talk about the benefits it offers, as well as what is lacking.

This event is FREE but booking is essential. For further details and to book visit our website

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS
Aideen Barry is an Irish visual artist whose diverse international practice spans filmmaking, performance, sculpture, installation, experimental lens-based media, drawing, and sound. She is a member of Aosdána and the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Ursula Burke is an Irish artist who grew up in the Republic of Ireland and later lived in post-conflict Northern Ireland. She uses this experience of living as a part of two cultures as a starting point to develop a dynamic practice that incorporates porcelain sculpture, soft sculpture, embroidery sculpture and drawing.

Sheenagh Geoghegan completed her MFA at The Slade School of Art, London (2013). Recent awards include The Galway Arts Centre Bursary Award and The Tipperary Artist Award.

Austin McQuinn’s (b.1967, Co.Kerry) practice is defined by deeply researched bodies of work creating solo exhibitions, most recently, at The Source, Thurles and at STAC in Tipperary, where he lives and works. His doctoral expertise is in live art practice and critique.

Bridget O’Gorman is an artist and writer working with text, live event, video and sculpture. She is currently engaged in an ongoing, slow working exchange with The Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, towards a major solo exhibition for 2028.

21/05/2026

📆 Saturday May 30th

📍 STAC Chapel

⏰️ 11am

Our first panel discussion as part of 'STAC Talks' will start at 11am with Michele Horrigan (Curator, Askeaton Contemporary Arts), Paul O’Neill (Curator, PUBLICS Helsinki), and Helena Tobin (Curator and Artistic Director of South Tipperary Arts Centre) under the title 'What's an Arts Centre anyway?'

‘What's an Arts Centre anyway?’ acts as a provocation of sorts and a loose umbrella under which to discuss the variety of ways arts practice is supported, produced, and disseminated in rural/de-centred locations.

This event is FREE but booking is essential. For further details and to book visit our website

ABOUT OUR PANELISTS
Michele Horrigan is an artist and independent curator. Since 2006 she is founder and curator of Askeaton Contemporary Arts, facilitating artist experimentation and residencies, exhibitions and publication production in rural County Limerick, Ireland.

Dr. Paul O’Neill is an Irish curator, artist, writer, and educator based in Helsinki, Finland. Paul O’Neill is the Artistic Director of PUBLICS, since September 2017. PUBLICS is a curatorial agency, contemporary art commissioner, event and exhibition space with a dedicated library and reading room in Helsinki.

Helena Tobin is Artistic Director & Curator at South Tipperary Arts Centre. In 2024 she took part in ICI’s International Curatorial Exchange at EXPO Chicago as one of two invited Irish curators. With over 20 years’ experience working in the Arts, she has expertise in developing and delivering an extensive range of ambitious projects across a broad section of the Arts including her recent work at STAC.

📸 Aman Azkarizad & Deirdre Power

20/05/2026

Join us for Session 2 of Word Sparks 📝✨️ this Saturday, 23rd May with poet and writer !

Through Word Sparks you are invited to step in and engage with the 5 diverse exhibitions that will be running throughout the arts centre's 30th anniversary year. For its second instalment, Jenny will guide writers through 'STAC at 30', an exhibition comprising works from our National Collections by celebrated artists including Aideen Barry, John Burke, Ursula Burke, Patricia Hurl, Sheenagh Geoghegan, Alice Maher, Austin McQuinn and Bridget O’Gorman.

These morning sessions offer creatives the opportunity to use varied and thought-provoking works of art as prompts for sparking interesting conversations and fresh writing ideas — we hope to see you there!

📆 23 May

📍 South Tipperary Arts Centre

⏰️ 11am - 12:30pm

🎟️ Free, no booking required

☕️ Refreshments provided