Celebrated local talent brings a captivating collection inspired by Sligo’s landscapes to the heart of the community.
Conor Gallagher, originally from Sligo, is a graphic designer and artist living and working in Dublin. He grew up within shouting distance of the Showgrounds, represented Sligo in Art in the U-12 National Community Games where he won a bronze medal, and went to Sligo Grammar School where his father Lionel was a teacher and Vice-Principal.
He has been a Credit Union member for over thirty-five years and a loan in the early 1990s helped him buy an early Apple Mac for his design business, with 4MB of RAM and a 40MB hard drive.
Conor took up painting again in 2008 and exhibited in places from a remote island in Denmark to the Royal Academy in London. He spent a year in residence in The Model Arts studios in Sligo in 2010-11 and had on-site exhibitions at the Hawk’s Rock, Coolaney and The Lovers’ Tree, Dooney Wood as part of Culture Night. A recent exhibition in Dublin, ‘Shore’ was based on the Sligo coastline.
In July 2024, he jointly won the
Hamilton Award at Cairde Visual with David Smith for two of his Sligo Mountain paintings series, ‘Copes’ and ‘Glencar’. Conor and David will have a joint exhibition at The Hamilton Gallery from May 24th to June 27th, 2025 and Conor’s show ‘Elevation’ will feature a range of photography, printmaking, drawings, and paintings from his Sligo Mountain series.