a kind of dark | Ciara Roche & Daniel Coleman

Saturday 04 October: Artist talk 4pm, Opening reception 5.30-7.30pm. Wine by Bubble Brothers.

Lavit Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings by artists Ciara Roche and Daniel Coleman, curated by Brian Mac Domhnaill.

There are no people depicted in Ciara Roche’s paintings and yet they all about people and their nature. There are paintings of the places we like to imagine ourselves living and places in which we wish to be seen, all relating to things we assign value to such as glamorous homes, gardens, fancy cars, high-end hotels, restaurants and bars. There are also paintings of the places we want to avoid such as waiting rooms and conference rooms. There are places where we wish to go unnoticed such as public bathrooms, fast food joints and convenience cafes. While Roche knows exactly what each piece is about, she won’t tell you, instead preferring the viewer to finish the paintings by inserting themselves in and creating their own ending. The paintings which are most often on a small scale, but occasionally they are very large. The imagery is derived from her own photography, film stills and found imagery and are made wet on wet with paint pushed around edge-to-edge creating lines and forms bringing a seductive, lush quality to the surface of the works. Through use of colour and its application light becomes an almost tangible thing, daubs of bright paint are flicked around to create this uncanny, too shiny world.

Daniel Coleman explores the impermanence of life and the significance of the everyday. His work is steeped in symbolism and meaning, in relation to his rural Irish upbringing. Through the ritual of making, Coleman aims to link the themes of self, family, place, loss, faith, time and memory. The works of Irish writers, poets and playwrights navigate a lot of the themes within his work. The figure, objects and the family home are at the forefront of his practice. The ancestral home is central to his research. Coleman investigates the relationship one has with the interior and the exterior landscape, with a particular interest in addressing solitude. Relying on memory, he then seeks to deconstruct these spaces and rebuild them through the medium of paint, creating new places entirely that feel familiar yet unfamiliar.

Objects and their contexts inform Coleman’s art. An inanimate object can contain emotional memory and act as a vehicle to other times and places. In painting them he hopes to create another catalytic object, a means of exploring transience and history. In Coleman’s treatment of the figure he applies the same process of ‘objectification’. The process of wiping the identities of his subjects and suffocating them through the medium, ultimately celebrates the physical properties of the paint itself. Coleman’s paintings are by no means certain of themselves, much like the artist, they are quiet but constantly overthinking.

Ciara Roche received her MA Art Research and Collaboration (2019) and a BA in Visual Arts Practice (2015) from the Institute of Art Design and Technology/IADT.  Recent solo exhibitions include honeymoon at Butler Gallery Kilkenny (2024), nightcall at the Ashford Gallery, RHA (2022); of late… mother’s tankstation, Dublin (2021); Here and Away, The LAB, Dublin (2019); and St Carthage Hall, Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford (2016).  She has exhibited widely in two-person and group exhibitions including in Purdy Hicks Gallery, London; The Glucksman, Cork, Greystone Industries, UK. Roche is a recipient of the 2022 Next Generation Award, numerous Arts Council & ArtLinks Bursaries and won the Éigse Graduate Prize for outstanding work in VISUAL with Carlow Arts Festival in 2020. Her work is represented in many private and public collections throughout Europe, America and China.

Daniel Coleman (b.1994, Co. Armagh) is an Irish Artist based in the North of Ireland. He is a studio holder of QSS, Belfast. He has exhibited extensively since graduating with First Class honours in Fine Art Painting from the Belfast School of Art (2016). Selected group and solo exhibitions include, ‘At The Foot Of The Mountain’, Arcade Studios, Belfast (2025), ‘As Far As The Eye Can See’, F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio, Banbridge, Down (2025), ‘RHA Annual Exhibition’, RHA, Dublin (2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 & 2019), ‘The Hennessy Craig Award and The Homan Potterton Prize’, RHA, Dublin (2024), ‘Main Exhibition’, Boyle Arts Festival, Roscommon (2025, 2024 & 2022),  ‘The First International Biennial Exhibition’, Ballinglen Arts Foundation and Museum, Mayo (2023-2024), ‘SHADOWS ON THE WALL’, The Georgian Gallery, Ards Arts Centre, Newtownards, Down (2023), ‘MATTERS OF TABLE’, Periphery Space, Wexford (2023), ‘URGENCIES (2023)’, CCA, Derry (2023), ‘New Exits: 10 Years of Painting Shows’, The MAC, Belfast (2022–2023). He is a member of the drawing collective, ‘The Drawing Journal’, collaborations include, ‘Quiet Wanders Laughing’, Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo (2023), ‘Thing;’, Ards Arts Centre, Newtownards, Down (2021) and ‘Image of Thought’, Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, Belfast (2020–2021). Daniel is the recipient of the Interface Inagh Residency Award, Connemara, Galway, supported by An Chomhairle Ealaíon (2024), the RHA/ Áras Éanna Residency Award, Inis Oírr, Galway (2021) and has been shortlisted twice for The Hennessy Craig Award and The Homan Potterton Prize, RHA, Dublin (2026 & 2024). He was longlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize (2025) and has been awarded funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (2023/24 & 2021), and the Freelands Foundation (2020). His work can be found in public and private collections throughout Ireland (including the OPW, Dublin), UK (London) and USA (Boston).