Light Falls: Ode to Baggotonia
"We are delighted to honour Gerard Byrne as Artist of the Festival. His luminous paintings capture the vitality of Dublin’s cultural quarter — a fitting tribute to Baggotonia, the historic heartland of poets, painters, and playwrights."
— Tom Skinner, Baggotonia Festival Co-founder
There is a certain kind of light that belongs only to Dublin — soft but watchful, steeped in rain and memory. It lingers on brick, shimmers on canal water, catches in the leaves of back gardens and behind glass. Light Falls is an ode to that light — and to the Bohemian soul of the city that once inspired, and still continues to inspire, generations of artists and writers.
Presented in conjunction with Gerard Byrne’s festival-opening exhibition Baggotonia Reflections at The Oriel Gallery, this new body of work extends the conversation, shifting it into the quiet, intimate setting of the artist’s own studio in Ranelagh — a working gallery, living space, and creative haven just minutes from the historic heart of Baggotonia.
Here, Byrne captures the everyday rendered extraordinary: morning light on copper, the glow between buildings, shadows folding into foliage. The works range from contemplative still lifes to urban streetscapes and botanical studies, but all are united by a singular pursuit — to hold something fleeting, to translate light into feeling.
In the spirit of Baggotonia — where Samuel Beckett, Mainie Jellett, Brendan Behan, and Francis Bacon once walked the streets in search of their own language — Light Falls continues a tradition of responding to place not with nostalgia, but with presence. Byrne does not replicate what he sees; he paints what remains after looking — what the light leaves .