UPCOMING
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PAUL HALLAHAN: SET ADRIFT ON MEMORY BLISS
December 5, 2026 - January 8, 2026
opening reception: Friday, December 5 (6-8pm)
A selection of paintings by Dublin, Ireland-based artist Paul Hallahan, spanning from 2018 to 2025.
Set Adrift on Memory Bliss takes its title from the PM Dawn song from the early 1990s. It has always stayed with me for its drifting sense of reflection and distance, for the way it holds calm and melancholy at the same time. That same feeling, of being suspended between presence and memory, is at the center of these paintings.
I have always been interested in the blurred image, in the moment when things begin to lose their edge and merge together. There is something truthful in that space, something that feels closer to how memory and perception actually operate. A sharply defined image can seem too certain, while a blurred one allows movement and change. It gives space for the imagination to become part of what is seen.
In all these works I use thin layers of paint on semi-transparent surfaces, so that light can move through them and alter what appears. Depending on where you stand, the paintings can shift, sometimes coming into focus before dissolving again into atmosphere. I want that instability to feel present, because it mirrors how experience and memory constantly reshape one another.
Painting for me is a way to stay inside that uncertainty. It allows for a kind of attention that is slow and unguarded, where looking becomes a form of thought. The title Set Adrift on Memory Bliss feels right because it speaks to that sense of drifting, of allowing memory and perception to carry you somewhere without the need to arrive.
These works are about that movement, the quiet rhythm between what is seen, what is remembered, and what might still be waiting to appear.
- Paul Hallahan, Dublin, Ireland, October 2025
photograph by Maria Maarbjerg
Paul Hallahan’s work returns again and again to questions of nature, perception, and the shifting ground between clarity and uncertainty. He primarily paints, though his practice also includes sculpture and video, each medium offering a different route toward contemplation.
His paintings are built slowly through thin, layered washes that hold and reflect light. Rather than presenting fixed images, they remain open and fluid, changing subtly with time, light, and perspective. Each work becomes an environment in itself; atmospheric, temporal, and elusive. They resist finality and instead invite close attention, asking the viewer to linger. Hallahan’s practice is thoughtful and measured, grounded in the belief that visual work can hold space for reflection and remain active long after it is made. Whether on canvas or screen, the works speak quietly, holding presence without insistence.Interests within his work expand into many areas but commonly focus on how we as a species relate and interact with nature, taking art as a form or by-product of nature and our civilization. Using various methods and techniques his paintings are built up of thin layers on mostly raw canvases which allow light move through the works and change within the spaces they are located, transcending the composition and initial image of the work to the viewer.
Hallahan is the 2018 recipient of the Golden Fleece Award, a coveted Irish Visual Arts Award, and his paintings are held in both public and private collections, including The Arts Council Ireland, Trinity College in Dublin, the Kildare County Council, and the Irish Government Agency Office of Public Works.
Paul Hallahan
true level digging comes up, goes down
2018
acrylic ink and paint on canvas
approx. 90.6 by 63 in.
(ca. 230 by 160 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Lotus
2022
acrylic on canvas
approx. 63 by 90.6 in.
(ca. 160 by 230 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Need You
2022
acrylic on canvas
approx. 14 by 12 in.
(ca. 35 by 30 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Ruiner
2022
acrylic on canvas
approx. 14 by 12 in.
(ca. 35 by 30 cm)
Paul Hallahan
water runs nervous
2023
oil on canvas
approx. 12 by 14 in.
(ca. 30 by 35 cm)
Paul Hallahan
thought after thought after thought
2023
oil on canvas
approx. 19.7 by 23.6 in.
(ca. 50 by 60 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Rhythm, multiplicity
2025
oil on canvas
approx. 19.7 by 15.7 in.
(ca. 50 by 40 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Harmony, equational
2025
oil on canvas
approx. 19.7 by 15.7 in.
(ca. 50 by 40 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Melody horizon speed
2025
oil on canvas
approx. 19.7 by 15.7 in.
(ca. 50 by 40 cm)
Paul Hallahan
Duel
2025
oil on canvas
approx. 63 by 90.6 in.
(ca. 160 by 230 cm)