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Join Mary Cremin, Head of Programming at IMMA who introduces the new exhibition Sam Gilliam: Sewing Fields, the first solo exhibition in Ireland by Sam Gilliam (1933 – 2022), one of the leading innovators in post-war American painting. The exhibition is co-organised with the Sam Gilliam Foundation, which promotes the legacy and vision of abstract artist Sam Gilliam. Discover the Gilliam’s ground-breaking approach to painting and his iconic ‘Drape’ paintings, where he blurred the lines between painting and sculpture. Learn more about the influences of Irish landscape on the artist’s work, and how Gilliam transformed the viewer’s experience through innovative use of colour, form, and materials.


About Speaker

Mary Cremin is Head of Programming at IMMA and was previously Director of Void Gallery, Derry since 2017, where she has supported artists to produce and present ground-breaking new works, including commissioning the artist Helen Cammock’s Turner Prize winning film The Long Note. Cremin was the Commissioner and Curator of the Irish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with artist Eva Rothchild in 2019. Working with organisations such as the Afghan Visual Arts & History Collective and Beirut Art Residency, her program focuses on revealing new narratives and histories that address and challenge the disparities that exist within Western culture, her program acts as a curatorial corrective. Her areas of research are embedded in ecology, ethics and is informed by politically and socially engaged practice.


About Exhibition

Sam Gilliam Sewing Fields
13 June 2025 – 25 January 2026
House Galleries

IMMA presents for the first time in Ireland a solo exhibition by Sam Gilliam (1933 – 2022), one of the great innovators in post-war American painting, co-organised with the Sam Gilliam Foundation. Emerging in the mid-1960s, his canonical ‘Drape’ paintings merged painting, sculpture, and performance in conversation with architecture in entirely new ways. Suspending unstretched lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed.

This exhibition continues IMMA’s engagement with artists whose work has received renewed attention and accolades in recent years that has included Howardena Pindell (2023), Derek Jarman (2019), and Frank Bowling (2018). More details here