In this first Green Journal entry, Sandra Murphy from our Visitor Engagement Team, will keep you updated on some of the seasonal changes and recent arrivals on the grounds of IMMA.

Patricia Brennan, Visitor Engagement Team at IMMA and PG student at TCD, continues to engage with the art of renowned realist painter Dame Paula Rego, in an introduction to Rego’s solo exhibition Obedience and Defiance. This second of a two-part text, pivots on Rego’s engagement with human rights and gender politics from the millennium to the present day. Serendipitous conjunctions with writers and artists - past and present - are observed.

Patricia Brennan, Visitor Engagement Team at IMMA and PG student at TCD, engages with the art of renowned realist painter Dame Paula Rego, in an introduction to Rego’s solo exhibition Obedience and Defiance at IMMA. In this first of a two-part text, there are references to the political context and influences of the artist’s early life and on her works up until the millennium.

Beth O’Halloran, Visitor Engagement Team at IMMA/lecturer at NCAD, looks at the transgressive role of female artists as cultural ethnographers – in particular the artist as flâneuse. Included are references to works by Isabel Nolan and Sophie Calle, exhibited in IMMA currently and 2004 respectively, and to writers Rebecca Solnit and Virginia Woolf.

Over recent weeks IMMA has been preparing for re-opening, as restrictions have been reduced nationwide, we are delighted that the grounds at IMMA are now once again fully open to the public. In this article, Sandra Murphy (Visitor Engagement Team, IMMA), will focus on some of the birdlife that you may notice when enjoying a visit to IMMA.

Besides such places as The Stonewall Inn, there are few physical places that are part of LGBTQ I+ cultural history - Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage is one of them. Writer and filmmaker Susan Thomson takes us on a journey to his cottage and garden in Dungeness, Kent.

In this Magazine Article, Stephen Taylor from our Development Team describes one of the highlights of last years IMMA Members Calendar,  a visit to the studio of artist Eamon Colman.

Seán Kissane, Curator of Exhibitions at IMMA, looks back at the exhibition on Patrick Hennessy he curated in 2016. Hennessy was one of the first Irish artists to depict his life as a gay man in the face of social, religious and legal restrictions.

On 28 June 1969 police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich village New York, the 200 patrons resisted against the discriminatory police raid and rioted. A year later a committee was formed to commemorate the riots – Gay Pride was born. This year parades and parties have been cancelled so we look at new ways to celebrate and commemorate. This week, Chris Jones, our Visitor Engagement Team supervisor turns a queer eye on the IMMA Collection and explores works by LGBTQI+ artists.

Businessman and collector Gordon Lambert was a loyal and generous supporter of IMMA since the campaign for its creation began in the 1980s. His private collection of over 300 artworks joined the museum shortly after its opening in 1991. Since 2005 IMMA has also held his art library and extensive archive of letters, cards, photographs, printed material and ephemera.

This article explores the themes of solitude, isolation and communication through artworks from the IMMA Collection. In the context of living under lockdown, this selection brings together a range of artworks that demonstrate the desire to communicate and create in situations of solitude.

While the IMMA site is closed we will continue to explore the biodiversity of the IMMA site in this series of articles by Sandra Murphy from our Visitor Engagement Team. This time Sandra looks at the butterflies she has spotted in the grounds of the RHK.

National Drawing Day takes place today Saturday 16 May and although we cannot draw in the galleries this year IMMA is looking to explore our local and more immediate environment. In this article Barry Kehoe explores his local environment through drawing, making maps and graphic comics to illustrate and investigate the strange layers of time and mystery to be found in a limited area around his home.

The exhibition A Consummate Joy by Bharti Kher was due to open to the public at IMMA on Friday 13th March 2020. This was the day public buildings were closed due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19. This is a blog post about one of the artworks in the exhibition titled Virus XI (2020).

Here we reflect on two remarkable artists and people, Janet Mullarney and Tim Robinson, who we had the pleasure to work with and get to know over many years. Our thoughts are with their families and many friends.