Training Example: Lavit Gallery – Review the Data, Give Your Score & Compare to the Real AI Evaluation

See All Current Exhibitions
[H2] Upcoming Exhibitions
See All Upcoming Exhibitions
[H2] Past Exhibitions
See All Past Exhibitions
Venue Hire
[H2] Lavit Gallery is Available for Hire
For a variety of events such as civil ceremonies, book launches, seminars, corporate networking events or presentations.
Learn More
[H2] From the Stock Room
See All Artworks
Membership
[H2] Become a Member
Members of Lavit Gallery ensure that this long-established venue is enabled to continue providing exhibition space for established and emerging artists.
Learn More

[H2] About Lavit Gallery
[H4] Opening hours:
Tuesday* to Saturday 10:30am – 6:00pm *Closed Tuesday after a Bank Holiday Monday.
Cork Arts Society (est 1963), trading as Lavit Gallery, is a not-for-profit arts organisation, registered charity and CLG dedicated to promoting an appreciation of art in Cork City through the provision of a gallery space in which artists can exhibit their artwork for public patronage. Lavit Gallery also serves the art community and the public through its non-commercial activities such as art installations, artist talks, exhibition tours, continued professional development and the provision of two graduate awards given annually to students at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design.
[H2] History
Cork Arts Society (CAS) was founded in 1963 to “to promote a lively interest in art subjects generally, including art appreciation, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, crafts, etc”, as was stated in the first circular sent out on 16 February that year. The founding members and listed promoters of the society were architects PJ Scally, C. Aliaga Kelly and Jim Barry, Commandant A Beckett, P Byrne M.D., Mary Dwyer, Canon EW Mills, Eva O’Connell, Anne Scally and William Tompkins. Listed patrons included Lord Mayor of Cork Sean Casey, Mrs Dowdall T.D. (member of parliament), Accountant P. F. Parfrey, Mr. G.Y. Goldberg and artists Somhairle MacCana, Marshall Hutson and Seamus Murphy. The circular was specifically aimed at promoting attendance at a meeting to inaugurate the society, to be held on 21 February in the Crawford School of Art at Emmet Place (now Crawford Art Gallery) which, according to local press, was well attended.
The first exhibition was held on the railings of the Model Schools on Angelsea Street (now Cork District Court between 15-19th May the same year. Much of the correspondence relating to this event is penned by Programming Officer PJ Scally and Honorary Secretary Ann Scally. In his 2001 article in The Lavit Review Volume 1, journalist and former board member Des O’Sullivan provided an overview of the national and international context in which CAS emerged. He points out that the visual arts were poorly catered for in Ireland during the 1960s when compared to other art forms and that direct access to visual art was restricted to museum-like institutions such as the Crawford Gallery. It is also noted that local tastes were conservative and living artists were treated with suspicion. There was a notable absence of commercial galleries in Cork and as such there were few opportunities for artists to exhibit in a suitable venue. So, it was timely that in 1964, the Crosbie family, proprietors of The Cork Examiner newspaper, made a premises on Lavitt’s Quay available to CAS. In 1966 Con Murphy of St Patricks Woolen Mills, Douglas provided a yearly sum of £100 for five years to be given to the Cork Arts Society Student of the Year, its first recipient being sculptor John Burke in 1967. That same year an exhibition took place in the gallery featuring Louis Le Brocquy, Melanie Le Brocquy, Michael Farrell, Patrick Scott, Maurice Desmond and Fergus O’Farrell. Four years later Cork Arts Society collaborated with David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin to stage solo exhibitions by Robert Ballagh and Cecil King as part of Rosc 71. Artist members of the Royal Hibernian Academy were also frequent exhibitors at the gallery in Cork. Looking at these developments from an art historical perspective one can be left in no doubt about CAS’s contribution to the visual arts in Ireland during this pivotal period.
The society’s first full time administrator was artist Harry McConville who took up the role in 1976 and was succeeded by artist Charlo Quain who was at the helm for eighteen years, which included the move from Lavitt’s Quay to Father Mathew Street in 1995. There have been many successive tenures by artists and non-artists with the 2018 move to Wandesford Quay taking place during the directorship of Aoife O’Connell. This was yet another significant milestone in the history of the organisation given the diminutive nature of the previous venue and established pedigree of the new venue, having been the previous home of the Fenton Gallery between 2000 and 2010 and subsequently used by the Crawford College of Art and Design as its own exhibition space.
The gallery is located in a former maltings and grainstore that was purchased by Cork City Council in 1998 and converted for artistic use. This was the result of successful lobbying by Backwater Artists Group (est. 1990) and Cork Printmakers (est. 1991) who had been occupying successive temporary spaces for years. Both arts organisations have a 99 year lease on the building and serve on the board of a holding company set up by the council to oversee the complex. Lavit Gallery is now the third tenant of the dedicated gallery space, a result that is to the benefit of all concerned. One of the distinctive features of the building are its low ceilings and the prevalence of beams and pillars that facilitated the open plan spaces used in the malting process. The ground floor gallery is now the only space that truly reflects the original layout with all other spaces having been subdivided into studios and workshops. The gallery is also home to the unique vault spaces once used to burn a type of smokeless coal as a source of heat for the drying of malt.
For CAS, running a gallery came with additional costs, so a commission from sales was necessary, as would be the case with any private commercial enterprise. With limited resources of its own, and operating in what was a limited local market, Lavit Gallery could not aspire towards providing fully fledged representation for artists. On the contrary, to maintain its own place in the commercial art market, and in line with its not-for-profit status, the organisation adopted a more fluid and inclusive approach. Rather than maintaining a fixed stable of artists, the organisation would work with regular contributors whilst also being open to approaches from new artists and makers on an ongoing basis as well as seeking out artists of interest. As such the exhibition programme and gallery stock could be adapted in response to audience and customer behaviour.  This open, responsive, and adaptive approach is arguably what has sustained the organisation over the decades.
Our 60th anniversary in 2023 was a time of reflection as well as celebration. We found ourselves revisiting some of the broader objectives of our organisation and taking stock of our contribution to the arts, including initiatives which set us apart from private enterprises. This includes the Student of the Year Award which is given to one or more graduates of MTU Crawford College of Art & Design. The award traditionally comprised a cash prize from a sponsor but later evolved to include an exhibition at Lavit Gallery. The second award in the form of a group graduate exhibition was added later.
To celebrate the organisation’s 60th anniversary and the legacy of these awards, Lavit Gallery presented the landmark exhibition, ‘Taking Form: Students of the Year 1973-77 | Maud Cotter, Eilis O’Connell and Vivienne Roche’. Curated by Gallery Director Brian Mac Domhnaill and arts writer and academic Sarah Kelleher, this show celebrated the foresight of Cork Arts Society in recognising the talent and potential of these three young sculptors, each of whom were awarded Student of the Year in the 1970s. In bringing together the narratives of these acclaimed artists, this exhibition pointed to a significant moment in the development of contemporary Irish art, when a dynamic and ambitious approach to sculptural practice emerged from Crawford College of Art in Cork. The exhibition presented new work along with rarely seen early sculptures and archival material spanning the artists’ lengthy and illustrious careers. The individual and shared experiences of the three artists informed the exhibition but also continued to be revealed through an associated programme of events hosted in collaboration with MTU Crawford College of Art & Design and Crawford Art Gallery, which was home to the college in the 1970s.
As well as maintaining a stock room, Lavit Gallery currently programmes ten exhibitions per year. Annual fixtures include the Student of the Year Award, Annual Members Exhibition, Summer Exhibition, and Winter Exhibition. We also host our neighbours, Cork Printmakers and Backwater Artist Group, on an alternating basis. Between these recurring exhibitions, we programme a combination of solo, two-person and small group shows.
[H2] Team
[H3] Brian Mac Domhnaill
[H4] Gallery Director
Brian Mac Domhnaill took up the role of Director in June 2022. He is an artsprofessional with 11 years experience in the programming, planning, production and marketing of over one hundred visual art exhibitions and associated events. Building on fifteen years experience working in the heritage sector Brian has gone on to hold numerous part-time arts roles and contracted positions such as Programme and Operations Manager at Sirius Arts Centre (2015-2022), Studio Coordinator/Research Assistant at Backwater Artists Group (2015- 2021), Project Manager for Cork City Culture Night (2013, 2015) and Project Manager for special events for the Cork French Film Festival (2013, 2016). Recent exhibitions in the role of curator include ‘Coalescence’, Lavit Gallery (2024), ‘Taking Form: Students of the Year 1973-77 | MaudCotter, Eilis O’Connell, Vivienne Roche’, co-curated with Sarah Kelleher and ‘Into the weave‘, Lavit Gallery (2023). He holds an MA in Art + Process from MTU Crawford College of Art & Design (2014), an MSc in Palaeoecology from Queens University Belfast (2002) and a BA in Archaeology and Celtic Civilisation from University College Cork (1997).
[H3] Ita Freeney
[H4] Gallery Administrator
Ita Freeney is a practicing artist and experienced arts administrator. She has worked part-time 2 days per week in her current role at Lavit Gallery since 2016. Prior to this she occupied the role of Gallery Manager for the organisation from 2009 until 2016 when she chose to reduce her arts work to focus on her own art practice. She has also filled the roles of Assistant Editor on the book Representing Art in Ireland (2009); Gallery Administrator, Fenton Gallery, Cork (2000–2009), and Visual Arts Coordinator at the West Cork Arts Centre (1997-2000).
[H3] Síomha Callanan
[H4] Gallery Assistant
Síomha Callanan is a visual artist based in Cork working in the medium of analogue photography. She holds a BA (hons) in Fine Art Photography & Lens Based Media from Limerick School of Art and Design (2016) and an MA in Art & Process from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design (2021).
[H2] Our Board
[H3] Ruth Fuller
[H4] Chairperson
[H3] Peter Roberts
[H4] Treasurer
[H3] Frances Lynch
[H3] Tim Bracken
[H3] Sarah Iremonger
[H3] Shane Clarke
[H3] Ivonne Coccaglio
[H3] Laura Noonan
[H3]
[H3]
[H3]
[H3]
Venue Hire
[H2] Lavit Gallery is Available for Hire
For a variety of events such as civil ceremonies, book launches, seminars, corporate networking events or presentations.
Learn More
[H2] Partners & Supporters
[H3] Funders
[H3] Finance Partner
[H3] Hospitality Partners
[H3] Supporters
[H3] Educational Outreach
[H3] Collaborators

\f\ — a taut body, a line, a ledge, a ladder. Structure and tension, a vessel through which presence moves along a temporal and physical axis.
X — a mark, a crossing, a coordinate, an unknown. It signals fracture, rupture, movement between stasis and collapse, memory pressed into form.
–ile — a suffix suggesting tending toward, a movement rather than a state: fragile, flexile, fractile. In \f\XILE, it evokes a body or structure leaning into uncertainty. Before tremor. Before release. The ladder, the vaults, the intervals between film and thud: –ile becomes an inclination, a crossing held in suspense, registering the impermanent echoes of stone and spine.
At Lavit Gallery, \f\XILE unfolds across two vaults. In the first, a long-form film commissioned by Sirius Arts Centre traces the imprint of place through image and sound. In the second, a driftwood ladder is activated by a feedback system, sending tremors through its body that sound the stone chamber. The architecture resonates under tension, folding image, sound, and material into a living, responsive environment.
Artem Trofimenko’s practice moves across film, sound, installation, performance, and photography as a way of working with attention — constructing situations where perception slows and subtle shifts in space, material, and the body become perceptible. The work operates at a low threshold of tension, duration, and instability, where image, sound, and material form a continuous field, each bearing traces of the others.
Artem Trofimenko is an Irish-Ukrainian artist based in Cork, working across film, sound, installation, and performance. A studio member of Sample-Studios and technician at Cork Film Centre, they hold Arts Council Agility Awards (2021, 2024), the Sample-Studios Sample 15 Bursary, and a Cork City Council Artist Bursary (2026). Recent work includes Falling in Grace / Rising Matter (GOMA, Waterford, 2025) and the Super 8 work A Ladder on the Edge of Living, made during a residency at Pedvāle Art Park, Latvia. \f\XILE emerged from a residency at Sirius Arts Centre (2026). They are currently developing Radio Silence, a cross-border project between Ireland and Finland supported by NEMO.

Lavit Gallery presents a two-person exhibition by painters Ita Freeney and Cathy Dorman. Their respective sources are landscapes and interiors, while for both, the work lies between abstraction and representation.  Although no humans appear in the paintings, their presence is implied. Both artists go through a very considered process of experiencing, observing and investigating light and shape, and distil, emphasise and manipulate these elements in their paintings.
“Light, atmosphere and  a quietness are often key characteristics of my landscape inspired paintings.  I have always been interested in both the division of the canvas into shapes  and the creation of mood/atmosphere.   I gravitate  towards looking for abstract forms within the landscape – playing with diagonals, horizontals and verticals while also being equally drawn to  light, atmosphere, distance and  subtle transitions of colour. This series of work has been in the making since my  last solo shows in 2024 and follows on with some similar themes to that previous Water’s Edge series. Again, I am mostly drawn to the coast even if the sea sometimes only appears as a narrow strip or small rectangular patch.  Piers, walls, and roads are prominent in this series.  The definite shapes of walls and piers against the airiness of sea and sky (emptiness and activity) are explored. I am interested in the way these definite shapes interact with  this ‘emptiness’ of sea and sky- surrounding, cradling, anchoring, forming boundaries and giving way to openings.  The shapes of roads, paths and walls act as lead ins- creating turns, and directional pulls through the canvas. The majority of these paintings have been inspired by North Mayo, while other inspirations have come from West Waterford, Kerry and Germany. Time is spent immersing myself in places through repeat visits, observing what interests me from different vantage points and in different lights and taking photographs, notes and thumbnail drawings back to the studio. The paintings come about through many light layers of paint, constantly re looking and subtly shifting colour and tone.” Ita Freeney
“My work explores and responds to site specific domestic spaces. The domestic setting of a home plays a significant part in the shaping and sustenance of who we are. Our home becomes a storehouse of our existence. It holds our memories, our fears, our aspirations, embodying the unique experience of each occupant. Modern architecture has changed the definition of home by accommodating its occupants in spaces that reflect their activities and values. My work to date has responded to specific iconic modern houses exploring how they redefined domesticity through their vision of a new way of living that was both physical and spatial and which held profound political and social implications. My work process begins by making models to explore spaces within these houses, a slow and pains- taking journey. Through black and white photography of the models, I investigate light and shadow within the space breaking it down into a series of planes, offering an intensely palpable experience. Using these images I construct my compositions and the paintings gradually emerge through the manipulation of materials with layering, patterning and constant reworking of paint. There is always something liminal at play in the work, small shifts of focus, an uncertainty and otherness that never quite explains itself. The depiction of furniture, architecture and inanimate objects in my work creates a sense of calm or frenzy, sadness or gaiety, a weighty stability or aerial lightness” Cathy Dorman

Cathy Dorman, Skyline, 2025, Oil and acrylic on panel board, 60 x 60 cm
Dublin born, Ita Freeney graduated from Crawford College of Art and Design with a BA Honours degree in Fine Art (1994).  She now lives in Cork. During 2023 and 2024, solo exhibitions of her series of paintings – Water’s Edge, have taken place at South Tipperary Arts Centre, Custom House Studios & Gallery (Westport) and The Paul Kane Gallery (Irish Architectural Archive, Dublin).  Other solo exhibitions have included Outer Edges at The Lavit Gallery, Cork (2019), A New World, Paul Kane Gallery, Dublin (2008), New Paintings, Fenton Gallery, Cork (2006), the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick (2002), Strata, Paul Kane Gallery (2001). Recently her work has been included in the following  group exhibitions – From Source to Sea, curated by Michael Waldron at the Crawford Art Gallery,2024; Visual Presence, Boyle Arts Festival, 2024; the Ballinglen Biennial Exhibition at the Ballinglen Museum of Art, Mayo 2023 and the 192nd RHA annual exhibition( 2022). She has exhibited with the Paul Kane Gallery since 1998, with several solo and two person exhibitions and many group shows there. Her work features in many collections including:  Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art, Mayo; Cork Co. Council; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (as part of the National Collection); Dental Hospital, Dublin; Department of Finance; The Office of Public Works and University College Cork.
Formerly a practising architect, in 2020 Cathy Dorman graduated in Fine Art from NCAD where she was joint recipient of the Fine Art Student of the Year award and shortlisted for the RDS Awards. In 2021 she was a recipient of the IPUT/RHA Wilton Park Studio award. Her first solo show ‘Domestic Planes’ took place at the Ashford Gallery, RHA in March 2022. Dorman exhibited as part of a two person show ‘Double Bounce’ at the Copper House Gallery, Sept 2023. Her second solo show ‘Step Away Closer’ was at the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar in March/April 2024. Dorman’s work has been included in group exhibitions at RHA (2020,2021), Dunamaise Arts Centre (2019) (2024), Hang Tough Gallery (2021, 2022), Outset Gallery Galway (2022) and Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray (2023). In September 2024 Dorman exhibited in the Wilton Park Studio exhibition at the RHA and recently (January 2025) completed the first segment of her fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle.

A grain of sand begins as a fragment, separated from its source rock, it is carried by wind and water and shaped by many processes. Transforming, it moves through landscapes, gathering traces of its journey. In time, it settles. Grains settle. Layers form. What was once scattered is whole, held deep within the earth, and part of a larger, shifting landscape.
Source is an immersive sound installation, inspired by the research of former geologist Dr. Jess Franklin. Her PhD work investigated the provenance of ancient sandstones, unravelling the history of their individual sand grains, from weathering through to transport, deposition, and burial. Developed in collaboration with sound artist Kevin Sanderson Beecher, Source echoes the enormity of geological time. Using field recordings and sound manipulation, the soundscape serves as a sonic narrative that follows the long journey of sand grains through the sandstone’s life cycle.
Upon entering a darkened room, attendees are immersed in an evocative soundscape and presented with an illuminated sample of sandstone resting on a plinth. The grains of sand within the rock are over 200 million years old. They were once part of mountains that no longer exist. They traversed hundreds of kilometers before arriving at their final resting place. The simultaneously erosive and cumulative nature of this journey serves to reflect the shifting inner and outer landscapes of our own lives as humans. Through our own materiality, we weather through time, becoming contoured, curved, and cracked. Over the course of our lifetime, layers of individual and collective experience build up to form the narrative of our life’s journey.
Slow down. Listen. Return to source.
Kevin Sanderson is an experimental sound artist and programmer based in Cork, Ireland. His practice is rooted in a reciprocal relationship between internal and external states of awareness through deep listening, field recording, and improvisation, serving as a continuous flow between himself and the natural world. Using this connection as a catalyst for his work, he deconstructs and recontextualises source material into imagined soundscapes and live performances. In addition to his soundscape compositions and performances, Kevin develops digital performance instruments, hardware controllers, and algorithmic compositions using MaxMSP, SuperCollider, and CSound, fusing his creative practice with a diverse technical background. He is a standing committee member for a newly emerging art-science collective The Fold  in Cork that connects artists with geology through focus groups, knowledge sharing workshops, and field trips. Kevin completed an MA in Experimental Sound Practice at University College Cork in 2025.
Jess Franklin is a former geologist and the founder of The Fold, Ireland’s first art and geology group. The Fold is a cross-disciplinary research group that brings together artists and geologists to explore geology as a source of inspiration for creative practice through inquiry, dialogue, and embodied engagement with the natural world. Jess completed a PhD in Geology in 2019 and worked as a public engagement manager with Ireland’s Fossil Heritage at University College Cork from 2021 to 2025, frequently collaborating with the arts. She is currently the Communications and Development Support Manager at Backwater Artists Group.

Orla Whelan is a Dublin-based visual artist working primarily in painting. Her work takes abstraction as a field of possibility in which to speculate on all things invisible or intangible. Eschewing figurative imagery and narrative device, she employs the basic ingredients of painting (colour, form and surface), to create abstract visual propositions for an image-saturated world. Although abstract, her paintings borrow their palette and forms from the world around them, frequently inspired by geology, cosmology and architecture. In recent years, Orla’s practice has expanded to include marquetry, writing, site-responsive interventions and collaborations, which have been developed alongside series’ of oil paintings on linen.
Recent solo exhibitions include Coloured into Shape at Custom House Gallery, Westport (2024), Hillsboro Fine Art (2024), at Glas, Gorm, Uaine at the Pearse Museum, OPW (2023) Magnum Chaos at Hillsboro Fine Art (2023), and I Don’t Need Anything From Here (magic-carpet-painting) at RHA Gallery (2022). Her book Matter Mammal Oil Soar was launched at the Dublin Art Book Fair at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios in 2021. Orla is founding director of art publishers Whale Dust and artists’ collective AtHomeStudios. Her practice has been supported by The Arts Council of Ireland and her work is held in the collections of The Arts Council, Crawford Art Gallery, and The OPW State Art Collection. She is represented by Hillsboro Fine Art Gallery Dublin.
The Fold is a cross-disciplinary research group founded in 2024 by Jess Franklin. It brings together artists and geologists to explore geology as a source of inspiration for creative practice through exploration, dialogue, and embodied engagement with the natural world. Co-designed with artists to ensure a creative-led ethos, the group is supported by a standing committee that guides its programming. The Fold meets bi-monthly through a varied programme of Seminars and Sharings, Open Days, and Field Trips. Its artists work across diverse practices including dance, film, visual art, poetry, photography, sound, and sculpture. Geologists in the group are affiliated with University College Cork, as well as specialists from industry and retired professional practice. Through these partnerships, artists gain structured access to academic expertise, geological collections, and technical resources typically held within the university, creating a framework for shared inquiry and mutual learning. This ongoing exchange between artistic and geological perspectives continues to generate new ways of engaging with the natural environment as a source of insight and inspiration.