Thank you to the Lord Mayor of Cork City Cllr. Fergal Dennehy and the Deputy Mayor of County Cork Cllr. Dominic Finn for officially opening the new #art #exhibition in our gallery yesterday, with Alliance Française de Cork President Valérie David-McGonnell, and Alliance Française de Cork Board Treasurer Pascal Lucas.

The exhibition ’Cork: Layers of Time and Traces’ features works by Deirdre O’Neill and Abby Curran, recipients of the Alliance Française de Cork-MTU CCAD 2025 Graduate Exhibition Award.

’Cork: Layers of Time and Traces’ presents a conversation between past and present. Abby Curran’s expressive drawings capture Cork’s vibrant energy, while Deirdre O’Neill’s painterly works evoke the city’s rich history. Together, their art reveals the layers of time etched into place and memory.

Deirdre O’Neill
The central theme of Deirdre O’Neill’s work is war and the women who live and who have lived under the influence and shadow of war. In her exploration of the current environment, it is certain that war is ubiquitous. Reporting of global events is instantaneous and is constantly delivered to us through our mobile phones and other technological devices.

In her exploration of contemporary war, she began to reflect on her own family history particularly her maternal grandparents and the struggles that they endured, especially the women whose lives were impacted. Her investigation into the past segued into place and past times of faded memories. These places remain although now transformed into spaces that generations have forgotten. The aim of her undertaking is to portray the zeitgeist of these former times.

Abby Curran
Abby Curran’s work encapsulates the energetic movement that pulses through Cork City and is an embodied response to her surroundings. She follows her instinct to capture the fast pace of life when surrounded in a cityscape, and the space around her influences the drawings she makes while staying in tune with her senses. By capturing the flux of life, her drawings are a bodily reaction to the city, which can be seen through gestural lines, mark-making, and gathering fragments of a time and place.

Working on site and expanding her sketches in the studio, Abby takes many aspects from different locations and compiles her experiences, fusing many places and times, collapsing many moments into a layered reflection of cumulative expressions which instantly guides her through her drawing process. She uses media that allows her to densely layer and erase elements of her work to express her multi-sensory drawings.

This exhibition can be viewed until the end of November, on Tuesdays from 5 pm to 8.30 pm, Wednesdays from 2 pm to 4.30 pm, and Saturdays from 10 am to 3 pm, at Alliance Française de Cork.