Show puts spotlight on Irish craft and design

Irish Design Works, an exhibition of crafts by locally based designers and makers will run from next Wednesday, July 18, to Sunday, July 29, in Galway City.

The Design Works Show, now in its fourth year, will include furniture, lighting, stone and metal sculpture, glass, ceramics and woodturning.

Based in Tribeton, Merchants Road, it will be officially opened next Tuesday, July 17, at 6pm.

Design Island is a network of designer makers who pool their resources to promote their work by exhibiting in Ireland and abroad.  All the work is top quality, both in terms of craftsmanship and innovative design.

The majority of the 11 participants in this year’s Design Works show are Galway based, with some coming from other parts of the country.

They include Monivea based Colin Grehan, originally from Tipperary, who creates sculpture in bog oak and stone.

Daniel Gill is a furniture maker and designer, who is based in Kiltulla. Tatianna Dobos from Moldova has been based in Galway for a decade and is the force behind Dobos Ceramics.

Donnacha Cahill from Athenry is a steel sculptor whose well-known larger works include Inquisitive Hare and Gramophone.

From Kildare comes wood turner Emmet Kane, whose work features burnished timber forms and gold or coloured inserts.

Ben and Joshua Gabriel are a father-and-son team of furniture-makers and designers from Loughrea, while Offaly woman Michelle O’Donnell is a glass artist whose work features fused glass.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.