Echo/Locate

For this informal event, Sorcha and Lucy will walk around the exhibition, chatting about its background and context, as well as talking through some of the wider themes within Sorcha's practice. Expect lots of discussion about painting, drawing, process, materiality, and more.

Echo/Locate is a site-specific installation of new and existing work by Sorcha McNamara. McNamara’s practice engages with deconstructive methods of painting, framing, language and image-making. She repurposes found materials to create lyrical, fragmented compositions that frequently respond to the spaces they are placed in, while questioning personal and conceptual tensions around craft, manipulation, agency and value.

Sorcha McNamara is an artist, originally from Co. Mayo, currently based in Fire Station Artists’ Studios, Dublin. Her work was shortlisted for the 2025 Golden Fleece Award. Current and recent group exhibitions include Green on Red Gallery (2025); VISUAL Carlow Centre for Contemporary Art (2024); Catalyst Arts, Belfast (2024); Draíocht Gallery, Dublin (2023); and The LAB, Dublin (2023). Recent residencies include Leitrim Sculpture Centre (2024); Zaratan Arte Contemporanea, Lisbon (2024); Totaldobze Art Centre, Riga (2022); and Tangent Projects, Barcelona (2021). Past solo projects include Fathomless Arms, Ballina Arts Centre (2023); (dis)attachments, The Hyde Bridge Gallery (2022); and Readymade #2, Oonagh Young Gallery (2022). Sorcha’s work has been supported through the Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award (2023, 2022, 2021) and a Mayo Artist Bursary Award (2025, 2023, 2022). She holds an MA in Art + Research Collaboration from IADT Dún Laoghaire (2024) and a BA in Painting from Limerick School of Art & Design (2019).

Dr. Lucy O'Donnell is an artist and researcher based in Achill Island. Her practice centres on drawing as a conceptual and material mode of thinking and articulating. She studied Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art, London and was awarded a PhD from Loughborough University in 2016. O'Donnell has taught fine art for the past 20 years, with exhibitions and residencies nationally and internationally. Her works are held at the Wellcome Collection & The Drawing Room UK; The Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland; and Ricklundgården Museum, Sweden; as well as in numerous publications and drawing journals.