Cailleach Dhubh, Emily Waszak’s first major solo exhibition in Ireland, is the culmination of 5 years of research and development and a three-year supported relationship with the Regional Cultural Centre. This new work explores widowhood through the lens of the cormorant, (cailleach dhubh), expanding on the artist’s previous work about grief, ritual and landscape. The widow and the cormorant live between worlds, never belonging fully to one or another. In coming to terms with the transition from wife to widow, Cailleach Dhubh examines the entanglement of identities—of place, position, ancestry and family. Making visible different forms of non-linear time through the interaction of agential objects and temporal media, the exhibition will convey a cross-cultural understanding of bereavement through narrative and sculptural forms.
Artist Bio
Emily Waszak is a Donegal-based visual artist of Japanese-descent working in sculpture and textiles. With a background in industrial weaving, her work is concerned with ritual, ruin and landscape. As a widow, themes of grief and loss are ever present in her art.
Waszak’s work has been exhibited in Ireland and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Ancestors, Lovers, Kin, Southwark Park Galleries, London (2026); Faigh Amach, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin (2025); URGENCIES, CCA, Derry (2025); Thresholds to the Unseen, Solstice Arts, Navan (2024); The Land and Others Including the Dead, Pallas Projects/Studios, Dublin (2024); Grief Weaving, Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny (2023); Shadow and Fold, Arts Itoya, Japan (2023); To Guide Shadows, Old Church Grangegorman, Dublin (2023). Her work was also exhibited in IMMA as part of the RDS Visual Arts Awards exhibition.
