About
Curated by Dr. Margarita Cappock About the exhibition ‘Formal and Wild Landscapes’ by Fergus Martin can be described as an exhibition of illusions and dreams. It incorporates sculpture, animation, photographic prints and sound projections that connect at an emotional and subliminal level. Every aspect of the exhibition, from its commencement…
Curated by Dr. Margarita Cappock
About the exhibition
‘Formal and Wild Landscapes’ by Fergus Martin can be described as an exhibition of illusions and dreams. It incorporates sculpture, animation, photographic prints and sound projections that connect at an emotional and subliminal level.
Every aspect of the exhibition, from its commencement in the cube space to the culmination in the upper gallery, provides the viewer with an invisible kinetic experience as the art works ‘ping’ against each other and relate sequentially to what the viewer will encounter next. The animation has as its starting point an idea the artist had for a sculpture in a landscape and has taken on another life in the virtual world – a fantastical version of a pastoral scene.
Martin notes, ‘It was sparked by my always seeing hay bales from trains. They always seem mysterious to me scattered over the landscape and make me think of how leprechauns fooled people who wanted their gold by placing rocks or hawthorn trees everywhere. These hay bales appear to have landed from space and sit there day and night in every season.’ Some of the works in this exhibition have featured in a recent exhibition at the magnificent early eighteenth-century Palazzo Birago in Turin in 2025. Visitors now can view these works from an entirely different perspective here in the contemporary setting of the Lab gallery in Dublin.
About the artist
Fergus Martin is an Irish painter, sculptor and photographer, known for his post-minimlaist aesthetic. His most recent solo exhibitions were Space – New Prints – at Green On Red Gallery , Dublin and Formal and Wild – Landscapes at Palazzo Birago, Turin, Italy, in Dublin. Also in 2025, he took part in the group exhibitions CAIM at Slane Castle, curated by Jenn Ellis and Matilda Liu, and Factory Made at Green On Red Gallery, Dublin.
In 2020 Martin’s sculpture, Oak, was installed at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a gift from the Irish Government to the court; a new permanent sculpture, Barrel was installed in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Also in 2020, his large-scale photograph,Chair, was purchased by the National Gallery of Ireland.
Martin is a member of Aosdana and is represented by Green On Red Gallery, Dublin.
Instagram: @fergus_martin_artist
