Collection: Derval Freeman

Derval Freeman is an Irish visual artist based in County Wicklow, working primarily in abstraction. Her painting practice is driven by colour and intuitive decision-making, examining how memory, lived experience, and landscape are internalised over time rather than represented directly. Through recurring structures and unresolved spatial relationships, her work explores tension, containment, and emotional pressure within abstract space.

Freeman’s work draws on long-term engagement with place and movement, producing paintings that sit between landscape and non-representation. Large colour fields are frequently interrupted or constrained, creating a sense of remembered terrain shaped by time, erosion, and psychological presence. Process remains visible, allowing imbalance and uncertainty to play an active role in the work.

She graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design in 1996 and works full-time as an artist. Her work has been exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally, including solo and group exhibitions at Hamilton Gallery, Sligo, Cairde Visual, Kilkenny Arts Festival, the dlr LexIcon Municipal Gallery, and touring exhibitions in China and the UK. She has undertaken artist residencies at Cill Rialaig, County Kerry, and her work is held in private collections in Ireland and abroad.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

2023 – Wanderings, Easter Snow Gallery, Seamus Ennis Arts Centre, Fingal, Co. Dublin

2021 – A Way to Equilibrium, Signal Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow

2018 – Solace II: Entering the Dream, Ranelagh Arts Centre, Dublin

2017 – Solace I, Signal Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow

2007 – Urban Trail, Frame Gallery, Limerick

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026 – Carrying the Songs, Pulchri Studio Gallery and Hamilton Gallery in association with the Embassy of Ireland in the Netherlands, The Hague, Netherlands

2026 – Flare, 8 Arch Gallery, the Old Mill, Kilmacthomas, Co. Waterford

2026 – Harmony in Diversity, Walters, Dún Laoghaire (selected by The Art Riddler)

2026 – Art in the Ballroom, Powerscourt House, Wicklow
2025 – Art Riddler Exhibition, Dublin
2025 – Climate Action for All (First Prize Winner), Climeaction, Cork
2025 – The Secret of Colour and Light, Walters, Dún Laoghaire (selected by Sahoko Blake)
2025 – Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny Art Gallery
2025 – Cairde Visual, Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo
2025 – 100/50, Unit 1 Gallery, London, UK
2025 – Paint Waterford, Mount Congreve Gardens, Waterford
2024 –1st Annual, An Chead Tine, Kilkenny (Selected by Francis Tansey)
Dublin (In association with Hamilton Gallery, Sligo)
2024 – Crosscurrents, dlr LexIcon Municipal Gallery, Dún Laoghaire
2024 – In Between, Walters, Dún Laoghaire (selected by Patricia Burns)
2024 – Europe in the Heart of Ireland, Hamilton Gallery and European Parliament Liaison Office, Dublin
2024 – Lines of the Land, An Chead Tine Gallery, Kilkenny
2024 – Interdependence, Walters, Dún Laoghaire (selected by Cian McLoughlan)
2023 – Conversation with Trees, Walters, Dún Laoghaire (selected by Eamon Colman)
2023 – Transience, Walters, Dún Laoghaire (selected by Carmel Benson)
2023 – Ancestral Houses and Meditations (touring), Hamilton Gallery Sligo / China
2022 – Hidden Histories, The Narrow Space Gallery, Clonmel
2022 – St. Brigid’s Well, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo (Invited)
2022 – Bealtaine Festival (invited), Carrickahowley Gallery, USA
2021 – Meditations of Time in Civil War, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo (Invited)
2020 – Among School Children, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo (Invited)
2020 – Eva Gore Booth, Museum of Literature, Ireland, Dublin (Invited by Hamilton Gallery,
Sligo)

Awards

2025 – First Prize, Climate Action for All, Climeaction Art Competition, Cork

Residencies

2022 – The Cill Rialaig Project, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry

2007 – The Cill Rialaig Project, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry