T H I N S P A C E: Cian Duggan
Upcoming exhibition
Overview
Cian Duggan, BORN, BORN, BORN, 2025, enamel on UV printed acrylic sheet, 100 x 150 x 2 cm
Galerie Quynh is pleased to present T H I N S P A C E, the first solo exhibition at the gallery by Irish artist Cian Duggan, featuring his distinctive ongoing series of UV prints on acrylic.
T H I N S P A C E refers to the liminal: a threshold space where human and nonhuman, animate and inanimate, natural and artificial forms co-exist. In Celtic mythology, "thin places" are sites where the boundary between earthly and spiritual realms are porous, permeable. Drawing from memory, modalities of reality, and time, Duggan creates dreamlike terrains where figures appear in flux, suspended between growth and decay, caught in perpetual metamorphosis. Boundaries blur; past and present, fiction and reality dissolve.
An amorphous spectre recurs throughout each work, placed over scenes of natural and manmade environments. Not menacing or unpleasant, but rather a sustained presence that leaves no trace—reminding us of the impermanence of the body and materiality, and how they are volatile forms of proof. These landscapes consist of found imagery, shadows and photographic documentation of previous works, and traces of ones yet to exist, assembled into multi-layered compositions UV-printed on acrylic sheets. Across these surfaces, new enamel forms are painted, bleeding across time.
Each piece functions as part of a singular, continuous work. One should approach them as one might move a flashlight through a dark expanse—the longer and closer you look, the more emerges from the layered surfaces. Spectral forms shapeshift, dissolve into one another, slip between realms. The body and environment exist in constant flux, boundaries fluid and interwoven.
The exhibition itself becomes a microcosm of a thin space, unfolding across three distinct realms. The ground floor opens in darkness with LONG LOVE and WHERE IS THE PALE DIRT suspended and illuminated only by spotlights. The second floor presents smaller works—STONE SKY, SHINING, and SPIT SHOWER—displayed as light boxes in a single dark room, transforming them into little worlds to peer into. The top floor reveals larger scale works such as BORN, BORN, BORN and CRUEL PONDS bathed in natural light.
Some pieces hang directly on walls, while others rest on pedestals with shiny black PVC facades, becoming sculptural entities.
The materiality of acrylic is conceptually central to Duggan's practice because of its variable relationship with light. Its surface continually shifts, absorbing, refracting, reflecting, so the work is never static. Each piece transforms within its environment, translating light and shadow into a language of presence and absence. By treating time and light as active materials, the works exist in constant transformation. Within these works, belief in existence and feeling becomes the most powerful force. The spectral form is both meditation and obsession, an obsession that the artist has sustained for years that we are brought in to experience. Like figures in fairy tales or lore that embody universal truths through repetition and transformation, the recurring spectre comes to represent the spectrum of human experience: love, the loss of love, long journeys, contemplations of the self, the fear of disappearing, the desire to leave a mark. The ambiguous yet poetic artwork titles echo this, offering fragments that suggest emotional states and mythic narratives without fixed meaning. It serves as proof of existence even when the body casting the shadow cannot be seen, a reversal where the spectre becomes evidence rather than question.
To accompany the exhibition, the gallery presents a site-responsive spatial intervention that recalls Duggan's earlier works in which he placed the amorphous figure into various locations through painting and wood cut forms. Within the gallery, a large spectre is painted in the elevator shaft, illuminated through darkness with a spotlight, waiting for viewers to happen upon it. Through this activation, the space becomes a site of transition, continually reconfiguring the relationship between viewer and environment.
T H I N S P A C E: Cian Duggan is curated by Anh Dao Ha and presented by Galerie Quynh. Special thanks to the Embassy of Ireland for their generous support of this exhibition.
