{"id":437644,"date":"2026-05-07T22:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/437644\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:03:16","slug":"isabel-nolan-on-representing-ireland-at-the-venice-biennale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/437644\/","title":{"rendered":"Isabel Nolan on representing Ireland at the Venice Biennale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Truman Capote once remarked that visiting Venice was \u201clike eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one go\u201d. At any time, it is arguably the most magical of cities, and for the next seven months, it will also play host to the world\u2019s largest festival of the visual arts, the Venice Biennale.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1895, the Biennale has run every other year since, apart from when delayed by wars or covid-19. This year\u2019s edition is the 61st, and features exhibitions by 100 countries, each installed in a national pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale or the Arsenale, or in palaces, churches and warehouses across the old city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is also a huge group exhibition, In Minor Keys, which includes work by 111 artists, selected by the late Cameroonian-Swiss curator, Koyo Kouoh.<\/p>\n

For some years now, Ireland\u2019s representative at Venice has been selected through an open competition organised by Culture Ireland and the Arts Council. This year, Ireland is represented by Isabel Nolan, a Dublin-based artist who graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 1995.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She has since established herself as a major force in the art world, with numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Ireland, Europe and America.<\/p>\n

Nolan was delighted when she learned that her submission, which she prepared with Georgina Jackson, director of the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, and arts producer Cian O\u2019Brien, was among those shortlisted for Venice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of work involved in getting that far,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we had then to undergo a rigorous interview. I think there were eight people on the panel, and I hadn\u2019t done an interview since I was at college. And even after that, we went back and forth for a time before we were told we\u2019d been selected.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nolan was finally announced as the competition winner in March 2025, and then began the process of actually making her work, which includes drawings, sculptures and hand-tufted tapestries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a beautiful studio in Temple Bar, and I always have a notebook to hand, as I like to let my ideas percolate,\u201d she says. The drawings she makes herself, while she mostly engages technicians to help complete her sculptures and tapestries, working to her designs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had the same tapestry man for 14 years, and the art fabrication company I use is based here in Dublin. They\u2019re brilliant craftsmen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA laser penetrates the sky over Venice as part of the Biennale 2026. Picture: Chris Levine\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Over the past several weeks, Nolan and her team have been installing her work in the Irish Pavilion at the Arsenale, on the waterfront in the Castello District, which served as a naval shipyard for hundreds of years up to the late 19th century.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe space is in a beautiful brick warehouse. I\u2019m told it was where they once made ropes for the ships.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Biennale opens to the public on May 9, and it is expected that attendance figures will easily match, if not exceed, the 700,000 who visited in 2024. \u201cIt\u2019s a nerve-wracking experience,\u201d says Nolan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of solo shows before, but the Biennale is huge; it\u2019s a major platform, with a global audience. I try not to get too caught up about it, but that said, I\u2019m very happy with my show.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dreamshook<\/p>\n

Nolan\u2019s installation is called Dreamshook, which refers to the sensation of waking from a dream. Much of the work is inspired by the 15th-century Venetian printer and publisher Aldus Manutius, founder of the groundbreaking Aldine Press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cManutius wanted to share his books as widely as possible, and he\u2019s generally credited with inventing the paperback,\u201d she says. \u201cHe also invented italics and pioneered the use of wide, clean margins, and he printed portable books, small enough that they could fit in your pocket, so you wouldn\u2019t need a servant to carry one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But there was a lot more to him than that. He was also a humanist scholar, with an ideology; he wanted to publish classical scholars and contemporary humanist writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

An avid reader herself, Nolan has a particular interest in the Christian literature of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. \u201cThey tell some incredible stories \u2014 about miracles, for instance. You\u2019ll find an account of a saint flying through the air, but told very matter-of-factly. I find that really charming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Closer to home, Nolan has taken inspiration from The Book of Kells, the 9th-century masterpiece of Western medieval art held at Trinity College Dublin. \u201cThe Book of Kells was something I would have written about while I was a student at NCAD,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I was in my twenties before I finally went to see it, with a friend who was visiting from America. A lot of what interests me are the architectural forms and structures in the manuscript.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her interest in illustrated manuscripts is partly what informs the bright colours of her wall hanging tapestries, which boast such elegant titles as Aldus Dreams of a Plentiful Supply of Good Books and The Dreams of Reason Produce Monsters (the Seraphim of the Canon).<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think the tapestries refer to stained glass as well,\u201d she says. \u201cI like to follow my instincts when I use colour. I go through phases. It\u2019s very intuitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most striking pieces in Dreamshook is a metal sculpture of a curtain blowing in the wind that Nolan calls Oh!. \u201cI like the idea of a powerful gust of wind shaking everything up,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"IsabelIsabel Nolan. Picture: Marc O’Sullivan<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s dynamic. I made it as a line drawing in metal, so it\u2019s playing with the idea of something that\u2019s tough and static having movement. And it creates a room within a room, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who won\u2019t get to visit Nolan\u2019s Dreamshook installation in Venice will have several opportunities to catch it in Ireland in 2027, when it tours to the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, and Ormston House in Limerick.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nolan is already preparing for her next solo show, at the Southwark Park Galleries in London in August. \u201cThe itch begins again,\u201d she says, as if nothing could make her happier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Truman Capote once remarked that visiting Venice was \u201clike eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,6405,43],"class_list":["post-437644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music-movies-reviews-munster","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}