Custom House Studios + Gallery cordially invites you to the official opening reception for Caught in Blue a solo exhibition by artist Sarah Wren Wilson. Please join us on the evening of Thursday 24 July 2025, 6-8pm. Opening remarks by the artist.
This exhibition invites the viewer into a liminal space—a deep blue space within another space. Blue, with its associations of depth, vastness, and the unknown, creates an atmosphere of openness and quiet immersion.
By entering, the viewer becomes more than a passive observer; they become part of the artwork. This immersive encounter opens a dialogue between the inner and outer worlds, between what is seen and what is felt.
The paintings explore the relationship between the psyche and the external environment, reflecting how perception shapes our understanding of reality. Often, the outer world mirrors our internal landscape. A recurring motif—the net—serves as both container and filter: a web of memory, emotion, and subconscious patterns. It maps the inner world, and in doing so, transforms our perception of the outer one.
Through abstraction—form, colour, texture, and compositional tension—the works express emotional and narrative layers that resist simple explanation. Hard-edged lines suggest the impulse to control and define, while gestural, intuitive marks reveal vulnerability and openness. This interplay between order and intuition is central.
These works are not meant to be fully understood in a conventional sense. Instead, they offer a language beyond words, giving form to what so often remains unsaid.
Sarah Wren Wilson is a visual artist with a studio at Custom House Studios and Gallery in Westport. Her practice is rooted in painting, using abstraction to explore psychological space, perception, and embodied experience. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Loughborough University, an MLitt in Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art, and an MSc in Art Psychotherapy from Ulster University. In 2020, she completed the Turps Banana Correspondence Painting Programme.
Wren Wilson has exhibited widely across Ireland and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include In Landing at Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm with CHS+G (2025), If Only I Knew (Hang Tough Contemporary, 2023), Spectator (Ashford Gallery, RHA, 2022), and PING PONG (Linenhall Arts Centre, 2021). Earlier solo presentations include Eroding Structure (Espacio de Creación Contemporánea, Spain, 2015) and Meddlesome Meeting (Ards Arts Centre, 2018). Her work has also appeared in recent group exhibitions such as Gotten Part 2 (Katie Lindsay Gallery, 2025), Volume I (Outset Gallery, 2024), In and of Itself: Abstraction in the Age of Images (RHA, 2022), and at international venues including the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts (China), Bushwick Studios (New York), and the Royal Scottish Academy (Scotland).
Wren Wilson has received numerous awards and residencies, including recent fellowships at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation (2024) and RHA/IPUT Wilton Park Studios (2021–2022), with further residencies including Hospitalfield (Scotland), Cill Rialaig (Kerry), and Fjuk (Iceland). She has received multiple Arts Council and local authority grants and was shortlisted for the RHA Hennessy Craig Award (2022). Her work is held in public and corporate collections including the Arts Council of Ireland, the Royal Collection (UK), Morgan Stanley, Quilter Cheviot, The Dean Hotel, and private collections worldwide.
This exhibition is kindly supported by The Mayo County Council Artist Bursary Scheme, 2025.
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