The Fine Art Of Textile / The Wild Donegal Tweed Project
The Fine Art Of Textile / The Wild Donegal Tweed Project at the Coach House Gallery, Dublin Castle.
The Fine Art of Textile is intriguing, colourful, arousing and difficult to resist the temptation to touch. It is a provocative exhibition naturally divided by the two sections of the Coach House Gallery design with The Wild Donegal Tweed Project displayed in the other section.
The work on display is an international exposition using painting, drawing, embroidery and sculpture. It is curated by Milan-based Irish artist Nuala Goodman with support of Italian journalist Maria Luisa Caffarelli. There are some fourteen pieces on display in the first section of the gallery including the explosive piece, Wild Tapestry, by Nuala herself. This hangs along side the paper pattern, cartamodelli, by Colomba Leddi, Panel in Blue, digital print on fine cotton, 2024.
There are millinery pieces to delight at in the work of Francesco Ballestrazzi’s Queen Bee (2002), Leopard print and quill (2010) by Philip Treacy alongside Lisa Farmer’s presentation Life Is Short (2025). Bomber Jacket Art, 2025 by Sanchita Ajjampur is again a visually stunning design in mix media creating a colourful visual of mythological creatures of air, land and sea, an ocean of fantasy.
Further pieces in hanging display come from Franco Raggi’s House with steps and a four poster bed 2022-2023, a mixed media piece while The Moon Broken by Lightning, 1985, is an embroidered tapestry by Clemen Parrocchetti. Stitched Book, 2010, by Maria Lai, is a presentation in cotton and thread while the architectural piece by Beppe Caturegli, BC 22 21B is a work from 2024 using embroidery on canvas. Mashup, 2014 , a hand-knotted wooden tapestry by Paolo Giordano. The exhibition also includes Wexford born Richard Malone’s free-standing sculpture pair, 2024 made with econyl, steel and canvas while Helen McAllister Venetian-inspired Alberoni Beach pair is a mixed media piece from 2010. Horizontally displayed to full effect and also on loan from IMMA is Kathy Prendergast’s sombre Grave Blanket 1997.
Contained in the other section of the gallery is The Wild Donegal Tweed Project. Donegal Tweed’s origin is centuries old evolving from the necessity to survive the harsh climate and cold conditions. In this exhibit art and fashion students from NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti) in Rome worked with five of the main mills in Donegal introducing a new generation of creatives to Tweed. The mills McNutt, Magee 1866, Molloy and sons, Triona and Studion Donegal donated fabrics to a textile workshop in NABA.
Twenty four Tweed cushions are in the display each with agreed dimensions of 45x45cm chosen as the ideal form to reinterpret techniques such as smocking (an embroidery technique used in clothing to gather fabric into pleats), embroidery (creating designs and patterns), felting (making fabric by interlocking and matting together natural fibres),patchwork (needlework technique where pieces of fabric very often of various colours and patters are sewn together), layering (technique of combining multiple layers of fabric) and more. As well as these displays there are four pillars wrapped in a different presentation of Tweed fabrics from various mills and inviting to the touch.
The exhibition is free admission. It has been running since June and will continue on until 24th August.
Hashtags: #TextileExhibtion 
