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VISUAL Carlow launches its new Theatre Gallery for Culture Night, featuring Mary Cullen Kelly’s work and live jazz from the Carole Nelson Trio. Free entry — all welcome!
Join us at VISUAL Carlow for a special Culture Night celebration as we launch our new Theatre Gallery, an exciting initiative dedicated to showcasing and supporting local artists. The inaugural exhibition will feature the work of Mary Cullen Kelly, marking the beginning of this new creative platform within VISUAL.Enjoy an evening of art, culture and conversation, accompanied by the wonderful sounds of the Carole Nelson Trio, performing live jazz in the bar throughout the night. Admission is free, and all are welcome.
The Carole Nelson Trio is an acclaimed contemporary jazz ensemble formed in 2015 by London-born, Ireland-based pianist and composer Carole Nelson. Joined by Cormac O’Brien on double bass and Dominic Mullan on drums, the group has established a distinct voice within the European jazz landscape. Their music bridges lyrical modern jazz with deep ecological consciousness, drawing direct composition inspiration from the landscapes, rivers, and forests of South County Carlow.The trio's critically acclaimed discography includes One Day in Winter (2017), Arboreal (2020), Night Vision (2022), and Through the Storm (2025). Celebrated for their open improvisation and narrative storytelling, their work has earned spots on The Irish Times top ten albums of the year and international praise from All About Jazz. Together, they deliver a powerful, minimalist live experience that transforms environmental themes into a captivating auditory journey.
Mary Cullen Kelly likes to time travel using paint, print and collage. She makes colourful images and objects about moments and places that might have come from a movie, a dream or been seen in a shop window. She thinks of the pieces as small-scale ‘magic carpets’. The destinations can feel familiar and strange at the same time. That is her intention, because she thinks life often feels exactly like that.
Mary graduated from the National College of Art & Design with a degree in Fine Art Print, and studied some Art Therapy in Crawford College Cork as well as completing an MSc in Disability Studies at UCD, which focused on engagement with arts activities and the value of that engagement for the person.
‘I mostly make paintings and prints, usually on Fabriano paper and often on a small scale. There’s a whiff of time travel about them. They might transport us to a place or moment, real or imaginary. They can feel like an invitation to somewhere we can think or muse or remember.
I’m interested in what happens during the creative process – the state of ‘flow’ that can occur while making the work, as described by the theorist Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi.’
Mary values making things and talking about making things, and creative communities are of huge importance to her. So when she moved to Carlow over 20 years ago, along with two other artists she founded Blueprint Artists Network, putting on regular pop-up arts events so that lots of making and talking could go on. She also joined Blackstack Print Studio in Kilkenny, got involved in street art with the Pure Thinking community arts project and became a member of We Go On writers group in VISUAL Carlow. Last year she attended the Critical Correspondence Course at the RHA School.
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Venue Information - VISUAL
