Twist and Shout, an exhibition of new artworks by Róisín Lewis

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is pleased to present Twist and Shout, an exhibition of new artworks by Róisín Lewis.  The exhibition opens to the public at the Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon in Dún Laoghaire on Sunday 6 September and runs until Sunday 1 November 2026. Admission is free.

The works in this exhibition evolve from Róisín Lewis’s bicycle journeys through the Irish landscape. During the summer, Lewis is amazed by the diversity of wildflowers and grasses she encounters as she cycles through coastal landscapes. To distract herself from the effort of climbing endless hills, Lewis tests her botanical knowledge by naming out-loud each species that she passes. 

On her travels, Lewis wears a small field recorder. Listening to recordings, she is struck by the slow, breathless determination in her voice, which highlights the physical effort of going uphill. The mental effort of recalling the names of flowers as she comes back downhill is also clear. Learning the scientific and Irish names adds a further level of difficulty. 

In the studio, she tests her knowledge by transcribing her audio recordings. As she listens, sequences of bright colours unfold like a woven cloth. Working with transparent watercolours, Lewis’s aim is to recreate her experience of light and colour on backroads teeming with fuchsia, montbretia, loosestrife, willowherb and meadowsweet. 

Lewis has been exploring ways of making textiles from montbretia, dandelion and bindweed fibres using the traditional techniques of twisting, looping and weaving. These slow, repetitive processes are comparable to the rhythms of the body moving through the landscape. Lewis’s drawing process is inspired by experiments with circular looped structures. These structures remind her of ‘activity rings’ used by her fitness app to show her daily movement. This exhibition displays Lewis’s experiments in representing data and memories which form part of the artistic process.  

Róisín Lewis was awarded a dlr Visual Art Commission Exhibition; this is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and supported by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.