Laois river the focus of new Stradbally art exhibition
New exhibition launched at Laois Arthouse by Dr Donna Wright, an Australian born visual artist
A new exhibition exploring the ecology and mythology of the River Barrow is running at Laois Arthouse in Stradbally.
The exhibition, ‘Calling up Berba’, is showcasing the work of Dr Donna Wright, who is currently a resident artist at Laois Arthouse. Dr. Donna Wright is an Australian born visual artist of Irish heritage and citizenship.
During her residency in Laois she has been working on large streams of unstretched canvas. Her works express layered thinking, weaving mythological and biological readings of place. A breath away from gone, depicts salmon wending among acorns and freshwater pearl mussels linking the origin myth of the Barrow Goddess Berba with the current decline of the freshwater pearl mussel.
Donna’s creative paradigm embraces indigenous Australian understanding of Caring for Country and contemporary eco-art practices to interrogate the colonial and post-colonial mindsets that impact our relationship to the land and waterways. She asks us to shift into a more primal sense of being in a world of inter-dependent, humans, non-humans, and mythological life.
The exhibition opened on Thursday, June 4 and runs until Saturday, June 13.
Donna’s professional research-led arts practice has spanned 35 years, with a national and international exhibiting profile. She has been a creative and cultural interface educator for 25 years pursuing a dedicated long-term objective of decolonising the western mind towards deep respect and gratitude for Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Through place-based international residencies and projects, Donna seeks out the stories intrinsically rooted in the deep and ancient relationships we form with the natural world.
Donna’s longstanding familial and professional relationships with the Indigenous communities of what is now known as Australia has situated her political, ethical and moral values, and her ardent advocacy for Indigenous self-determination, particularly in continuing settler-colonial states.
This knowledge and understanding extends to her familial homeland of Ireland where she applies this advocacy to all her creative place-based explorations.
Donna is resident at Laois Arthouse throughout May and June 2026. Her residency project extends her explorations of the Indigenous Lifeways of Ireland, specifically the ancient waterways of the River Barrow as she seeks to creatively express the reciprocities between the mythologies and ecologies of this fragile, colonised environment.
Donna works primarily with mixed media of pigments, inks and threads on large loose canvases which are exhibited as swathes of layered storytelling, either within larger gallery spaces or as environmental installations. Each canvas has its own lifeforce that dictates the final visual outcome. Donna will be holding artist’s talks at Arthouse Gallery during her residency period for those interested in understanding her practice and methodology.
For more information about Donna’s professional practice, history as an artist and her bodies of work, visit her website at donnawright.net or follow her Instagram profile @donnawrightartist