Tairseach: Standing at the mouth of the world
An Exhibition by Vicki O’Donoghue & Mary Doyle Burke, April 2026
The Tea Houses is delighted to invite you to the opening of the upcoming exhibition, ‘Tairseach: Standing at the mouth of the world’ on Saturday 18th at 2.00pm.
In the mystical spaces between the visible and invisible, two Kilkenny-based artists explore profound encounters with the Irish landscape. Vicki O’Donoghue and Mary Doyle Burke approach their local environments with curious hearts and open minds, creating work that meditates on thresholds where the physical world meets something deeper, older and sacred.
O’Donoghue’s paintings emerge from sustained walking across the mountainside. Her vivid, abstracted imagery draws from cave sites and ancient symbols, beasts and herds that speak to collective consciousness and primal instincts. Through gestural marks and contrasting colours, she explores herd mentality in polarisation with individualism, interrogating contemporary life while reaching back more primordial forms of being. Her work exposes the tension between conformity and divergence, a dynamic that sits at the heart of our fractured relationship with the environment.
Doyle Burke’s practice is rooted in shamanistic engagement with Kilkenny’s ancient bogs. Working with bio-materials, handmade dyes and bog matter, she positions the bog as a collaborator, friend and guide. Guided by meditative trances beginning in the bog and taking full form in her studio, tapping into intergenerational memory and cyclical rhythms that bind human and ecological experience, and form the basis of her sculptural and painting processes.
Both artists dance on the edges of sacred threshold, sense portals within the landscape. Their work invites us to perceive wider realities beyond what immediately appears. Caves and bogs hold a millennia of geological memory, offering us a recalibration of scale and challenging what we think we know. Both artists model ways of being with landscape that are attentive, reverent and transformative, helping us rediscover long forgotten sacred pathways and knowledge we have barely begun to reclaim.
Curated by Shannon Carroll.
Kindly supported by Kilkenny County Council and Creative Ireland.
Presented as part of the Kilkenny County Council Arts Office Programme
Workshop:
Location: Tea Houses Art Gallery, Kilkenny
Date: April 22nd (Earth Day)
Time: 2.00pm-5.00pm
BOOKING: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/1987048658026?aff=oddtdtcreator
Earth Day: Art & Biomaterials Workshop
Celebrate this year’s earth day and join us for a special workshop on biomaterials led by current exhibiting artist Mary Doyle Burke on April 22nd at Tea Houses, Kilkenny.
What better way to mark Earth Day than by exploring how creativity can connect us more deeply to the natural world? Biomaterials are where art and science meet, a space to challenge perceptions, rediscover the familiar and imagine more sustainable futures. Through exploring textures, grains, and consistency, you’ll experiment with eco- friendly alternatives to synthetic materials, using everyday food waste alongside seeds gathered by the artist from local boglands. You’ll also explore pigment extraction from plants, uncovering natural colour processes and expanding your material palette.
In this practical and relaxed workshop, Mary will guide you through making and experiencing biomaterials first-hand. Together, we’ll reflect on our material choices, explore sustainable creative practices and consider how art can exist within a wider circular economy. No prior experience needed. You will be asked to bring some simple household ingredients, requested in advance. Adults only (18+).
Who is it for?
- Sustainable artists & makers
- Curious creatives & community members
- Artists and students working with oil, acrylic, or sculpture.
Biomaterials can be used as painting surfaces or combined with pigments
What to expect
2pm to 2.30pm
- Initial presentation by artist on biomaterials (20 mins)
2.30pm to 5pm
- Hands-on experimentation with creating biomaterial samples
- Use of bogland gathered seeds and natural elements
- Introduction to plant-based pigment extraction
- Open discussion, bring your ideas, questions & experiences
Kindly supported by Kilkenny County Council and Creative Ireland.
Presented as part of the Kilkenny County Council Arts Office Programme
