Curated by Karla Sanchez Zepeda and Catherine Bowe
Wexford County Council, Carricklawn Wexford, Y35 WY93
12 October – 20 November 2026
Opening Event: Saturday 10 October at 2pm
The Arts Office of Wexford County Council, in partnership with Wexford Arts Centre, is pleased to present Chorus, a solo exhibition by Richard Malone. The exhibition will run in the County Hall, Carricklawn, from Monday, 12 October, to Friday, 20 November, 2026.
Wexford artist Richard Malone has steadily developed a strong and solid career since graduating from London’s Central Saint Martins in 2014. His work, spanning different media—from sculptures, performance, and textiles to drawings and installations—can be found in the collections of important institutions around the world, such as the Metropolitan Museum and MOMA in New York, NGV Melbourne, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, amongst others. In 2023 he was awarded the highly respected Golden Fleece Award for Visual Art.
Malone has developed an artistic vocabulary of his own rooted in his upbringing within the Irish working class. Malone’s inspirational sources are varied, from the sewing skills and artistic sensibilities of his grandmother, his father’s discipline and work ethic in construction, and the revelry attitude of Wexford teenagers, to the work of renowned modern and contemporary artists such as Eileen Gray (in 2021 Malone curated the touring exhibition “Making and Momentum: In Conversation with Eileen Gray"); Giacometti (in 2022 he undertook a 2-month residency to respond to an exhibition of the Swiss artist at IMMA, Dublin); Anni Albers, and Sheila Hicks (he was a recipient of a Josef & Anni Albers Foundation residency).
Malone’s attention to detail, his regard and respect for his roots and sense of identity, his deep sensibility, and his incredible work ethic make for an artist who is not afraid to go deep into research and experiment. His work is at once delicate and sturdy, flexible, dynamic, sensual, and ludic.
Chorus is an exhibition where Malone is reflecting upon his own creative process. He is continuously gathering many different materials and elements, arranging and organising them in a way that harmonises while also eliciting many different discourses and narratives. He is an artist who values skill and craft; all his pieces are meticulously made by hand and carry within them questions and ideas about Irishness, identity, queerness, place, and cultural history.
Artist Biography
Richard Malone, b.1990 (they/them, he/him) is an Irish artist from Wexford.
In 2026, Richard Malone was awarded the Derek Hill Foundation Painting Fellowship at the British School at Rome and the Gilbert Bayes Award from the Royal Society of Sculptors. In 2025, Malone was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize and was a finalist for the Mark Tanner Sculpture Prize, and undertook a residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Connecticut. Their work was also included in exhibitions at MoMA New York and MoMU Antwerp.
Their recent practice has encompassed a major institutional exhibition at The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon, in 2024, alongside a three-part commission for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Previous commissions include the Central Hall commission for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and a live performance commissioned by the Hayward Gallery for Dear Earth: Art and Hope in the Time of Crisis. In 2022, Malone won the Golden Fleece Award for Visual Art and has received Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary and Project Awards.
Recent solo institutional exhibitions include A Record of Tenderness at The Dock, Figures at Ormston House, Limerick, and knot, bind, Gesture, bend at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Malone’s work is held in major collections including MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the V&A, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Arts Council of Ireland. From 2026, Malone will have a permanent exhibition space at V&A East, London.
Malone’s writing has appeared in publications including Luncheon, British Vogue and Erotic Review.
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Richard Malone, A Record Of Tenderness, Installation View, The Dock -Carrick On Shannon2024 |
Richard Malone, A Record Of Tenderness, Detailed View, The Dock -Carrick On Shannon2024 |
Richard Malone, A Record Of Tenderness, Installation View, The Dock -Carrick On Shannon2024 |
Chorus will run at Wexford County Council from Saturday, 10th October to Friday, 20th November, 2026.
For further information on the exhibition please contact Una Cahill, Assistant Arts Officer, The Arts Office, Wexford
County Council, Carricklawn, Wexford, Y35 WY93, on +353 (0)53 9196369 or email una.cahill@wexfordcoco.ie.
Wexford County Council is supported by the Arts Council.
The exhibition appears on the Wex-Art Festival trail, running from Friday, 9th October to Sunday, 1st November, which is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Wexford County Council.
Wexford County Council’s opening hours are Monday to Friday from 9am-5pm. During the Wexford Festival Opera (15th–31st October), the exhibition will open Saturday 17th, Sunday 18th, Saturday 24th, Sunday 25th, Monday 26th, and Saturday 31st October from 10am to 4pm.
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