The key objective of Hyde Bridge Visual Arts Programme is to partner with visual artists living in the region, as well as selected artists from national and international fields, while maintaining a focus on community.
In particular, we strive to support young and emerging artists by creating a space in the Sligo arts landscape that extends exhibition and audience engagement opportunities to recent graduates, next-generation artists and those new to the North West.
Hyde Bridge Gallery aims to provide free access to contemporary visual arts to our audience – local and global. We believe it is important to encourage all artistic endeavours and to help develop a wider understanding of, and interest in, the contemporary visual arts within our community.
Hyde Bridge Gallery is administered by Yeats Society Sligo, supported by the Hyde Bridge Gallery Committee.
Our History
In 1977, the Sligo Art Gallery was founded, taking up residency on the first floor of the Yeats Building. In the words of Ronan McEvilly, who served as the Director of the Sligo Art Gallery from 1987-2004, the support and success of the Sligo Art Gallery “grew and it grew and it grew” (Irish Independent, April 13 2005). Following many years of successful exhibitions, primary funding from the Arts Council was withdrawn (due to recession) and in 2010, the Sligo Art Gallery was forced to close after 34 years.
In 2014 the Yeats Society Sligo council reopened a gallery in the Yeats Building, naming it after the Hyde Bridge where the gallery is situated. In the last five years, in partnership with Yeats Society Sligo, Hyde Bridge Gallery has established a voluntary committee of artists and has solidified an annual structure under its Visual Arts Programme.
Hyde Bridge Gallery would like to thank volunteer and committee member Catherine Fanning, who (since 2014) has dedicated her time and efforts to the management of the gallery, securing artist submissions, hanging exhibitions and everything in between. Additionally, we would like to extend our thanks to Lutz, who has looked after gallery space and invigilated exhibitions for the last twenty years.
In the past few years, Hyde Bridge Gallery has had relative success and held many notable exhibitions including Heidi Wickham, Dominic Corrigan, Marilyn North, Emma Stroude, Michael Wann, Gary Robinson, Seamus O’Byrne and Cróna Gallagher.
Additionally, Hyde Bridge Gallery has now established a number of traditional annual events: the IT Sligo Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition, The 9 Walls Exhibition, the new fundraiser RÚN (secret) Postcard Exhibition, as well as the very successful Bealtaine Festival in May and the Primary Colours Exhibition which featured work from adults at Gallagher House in Tubbercurry.
