OCG announces its schedule of exhibitions for 2026

The Olivier Cornet Gallery is delighted to announce its programme of exhibitions for 2026:

At the gallery:

Until end of February 2026: Memorandum, a Winter group show (launched in December 2025)
A show revisiting all shows that took place at the gallery in 2025:

With Memorandum the Olivier Cornet Gallery presents an overview of all the shows that took place in its premises in 2025, revisiting 4 important solo shows that year: Symbols of Revival by Nickie Hayden, Springs Opens Forever In Eternity by Conrad Frankel, An ghaoth aniar/This too will pass by Eoin Mac Lochlainn, and Self Portrait with a Pet and a Bathtub by Daniel Lipstein. Other highlights include works from our Bloomsday/Summer group show 'Out of Lines', an homage to the Art Déco period as we celebrated the centenary of the first Art Déco exhibition held in Paris in 1925. Last but not least, our Dublin Gallery Weekend 2025 group show 'Ode to Giants', also an homage, but this time, to favourite pieces held in 3 Dublin museums, is well represented. A 'souvenir' exhibition as it were, but devoid of nostalgia and simply reaffirming the old adage that it's good to look back when it can help us move forward...
 
8 March 2026 - 12 April 2026: Vicky Smith, Gairdín Rós / Rose Garden (solo show)

Gairdín Rós comprises 7 paintings made during the first four years of motherhood that explore portraiture, performance in the domestic space, windows to new perspectives, the body and landscapes of old. New work developed during a two-week artist residency in June 2025 at Interface Inagh, Connemara, comprises figurative paintings of the artist in the physical landscape and 3 paintings on woollen blankets.

Vicky Smith's practice examines domestic scenes, moments of motherhood, intimacy and the everyday, informed by memories of her childhood. Her autobiographical paintings of family speak to the experience of tenderness and relationships. She trained at Crawford College of Art and Design, Goldsmiths College, University of London, Trinity College UCD and the National College of Art and Design.

19 April 2026 - 17 May 2026: TBC

21 May - 14 June 2026: solo exhibition of new work by Conrad Frankel (More details to follow)

16 June – 27 July 2026: Thematic Bloomsday group show featuring new work by the gallery’s artists  (theme TBD)

Early August: an exhibition hosted at the gallery in collaboration with MSF (more details to be announced soon)

29 August - 27 September 2026: Miriam McConnon, No Mirrors left in Gaza (solo show)
The work is based on the personal lives of families in Gaza, whom the artist has been in regular communication with over the past 16 months. The images that have informed the work are from the domestic rhythms of the families who battle to survive the genocide and famine.

A series of large charcoal works on paper document the narrative of multiple displacement of the Palestinian families over the last 18 months. It exposes the crumbling of security and a domestic reality.

Mundane domestic objects are elevated to precious and rare artifacts because they are the last remaining of their kind to survive the constant displacement and bombardment of the war on Gaza.

Miriam is one of many artists globally whose work ensures that the resilience of the Palestinian people will not be forgotten and their struggle to survive colonialism and genocide will be etched in the minds of future generations. 

4 October 2026 - 1 November 2026: Sheila Naughton, Presence (solo show)
"An abstract painting is a presence that speaks silently to us. It can be 'felt' rather than 'read'. Initially, a painting is in dialogue with the artist, then with the viewer and finally, with the space it inhabits. It creates relationships - with the viewer, with other paintings or objects and with the space itself".

The exhibition will reflect the artist's interest in the nature of these relationships and how the viewer can engage with and bring meaning to abstraction. 

5 November 2026 - 6 December 2026: group show in response to the 300th anniversary of Jonathan Swift's novel ‘Gulliver's Travels’. Launching as part of Dublin Gallery Weekend 2026. An artists’ response to philosophical tales like Gulliver's Travels that use narratives and fantasy to explore complex ideas about human nature, society and politics.

Extra-muros:

23 March - 10 May 2026: Miriam McConnon at Europe House Dublin, Common Fractures, a solo show curated by Olivier Cornet by invitation of and in collaboration with the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland to mark the Cypriot presidency of the EU during the first semester of 2026.
 
For this exhibition McConnon’s work looks at Ireland and Cyprus’ shared history of colonialism, its consequences and the impact it had on the social and political evolution of both nations in its aftermath.

Objects such as a wedding dress, a military jacket, books and ancient ceramic vessels narrate the common elevation of religion, education and conflict in the post-colonial era of both nations.

The artist also refers to the mass emigration that befell both nations during and after their struggle for independence. These carefully chosen objects in her artworks are adorned with the patterns from the personal objects belonging to refugees who have been currently displaced due to war.

Miriam has been interviewing displaced families and young people for the last eight years, presenting their stories using personal objects that they brought with them on their journey to safety. In this new series of work she holds a mirror up to Cyprus and Ireland, nations that are the custodians of the edges of the EU’s borders in order to see their country’s past struggle to survive in the lives of the immigrant of today.

Image: Miriam McConnon, Common Fracture, charcoal on paper, 200x150cm