Visit a Sligo ExhibitionSligo is bursting with visual art throughout the year, offering a rich mix of contemporary, traditional, and experimental exhibitions across its galleries and cultural spaces. Whether you're drawn to the legacy of Jack B. Yeats or the bold expressions of emerging artists, there's always something inspiring on display.
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The Niland Collection
Located within The Model arts centre in Sligo Town, the Niland Gallery is home to one of Ireland’s most significant collections of 20th-century Irish art: The Niland Collection. Named after Nora Niland, the visionary former Sligo County Librarian who began the collection in the 1950s, this gallery is a cultural cornerstone of the northwest.
The collection:
Set within a beautifully restored 19th-century building, The Model is one of Ireland’s leading contemporary arts centres. It offers a rich and immersive experience for visitors, blending visual art, performance, and community engagement under one roof.
The collection:
- Jack B. Yeats – The collection features an outstanding array of works by Yeats, whose expressive style and deep connection to Sligo make him a central figure in Irish art.
- Irish Masters – You’ll also find pieces by Paul Henry, Estella Solomons, Louis le Brocquy, and Sean McSweeney, among others.
- Curated Exhibitions – The Model presents six exhibitions from the Niland Collection each year, often with a focus on the Yeats family during the summer months
- Contemporary Programming – Alongside the permanent collection, The Model hosts cutting-edge exhibitions, artist residencies, and performances that explore urgent themes in modern art
Set within a beautifully restored 19th-century building, The Model is one of Ireland’s leading contemporary arts centres. It offers a rich and immersive experience for visitors, blending visual art, performance, and community engagement under one roof.
Current Exhibitions
Jack Butler Yeats; The Living Ginger
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Jack B. Yeats used the phrase “the living ginger” to describe the vital spark he believed every great painting must contain — an inner charge that lifts an image beyond representation. For Yeats, this spark wasn’t merely visual. It was emotional, psychological, imaginative. It was the pulse of lived experience, the flicker of life that animates a figure on the canvas.
Yeats was never interested in documenting social types. He was searching for something deeper — that essential spark, the living ginger, the moment when a painted figure becomes more than paint and begins to breathe. Where: The Model, Sligo When: 6 Mar '26 to 05 Jul '26 More info: Jack B Yeats; The Living Ginger - The Model, Sligo. |
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Tinka Bechert; Polyrhythms
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The Model presents Polyrhythms, a solo exhibition by German‑Irish artist Tinka Bechert. Featuring paintings, sculptures and textile works made since 2018, the exhibition highlights Bechert’s shift from narrative imagery toward a rhythmic, musical form of abstraction. Repetition, pacing and variation guide how each work unfolds, echoing experimental traditions such as the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College.
Living between Sligo and Berlin, Bechert has exhibited widely, with recent solo shows at the RHA Gallery (2024), Oonagh Young Gallery (2022) and Galerie Gerken, Berlin (2019). Her work appears in major public collections including the OPW, the Arts Council, the V&A and Tate. The exhibition opens at 3pm on Saturday 4 April. A public conversation with Tinka Bechert and Patrick Murphy takes place at 1pm on Saturday 9 May. Where: The Model, Sligo When: 4 Apr '26 to 31 May '26 More info: Tinka Bechert; Polyrhythms - The Model, Sligo. |
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