Artist Mentoring Sessions

This year we are seeking applications from practitioners in any area of practice (painting, sculpture, performance, moving image, expanded practice etc.) that wish to engage in the critical development of their practice.

Selected artists will participate in three in-person critiques held at GSA and receive two recorded video feedbacks between August and November 2025.

Led by artist and art critic, James Merrigan, alongside a guest artist each session, this is a free opportunity to discuss depths of your art and art-making in a group setting of your peers.

Please upload 1 image that defines your art practice and no more than 100 words that explains the reasons why this workshop is pivotal to your art practice at this place and time.

Focus Areas:

– Presentation skills

– Critical and analytical thinking

– Networking and collaboration

– Artistic development and idea generation

Suitable for artists across all disciplines.

Meet your tutor

James Merrigan is an artist and critic. For 15 years he has invented online and printed identities for his writing and publications, from +billion-journal (2010-17) to Small Night Projects (2019-2025). In 2011 he was awarded the inaugural Critical Writing Award by Visual Artists Ireland and The LAB Dublin. As co-curator of Gorey School of Art’s Periphery Space for 8 years he has worked alongside Emma Roche to develop exhibitions such as “Soul–Beating” (2017) and “peripheriesPOST” (2023). Recent exhibitions and publications include WEAREFETISHISTS (Garter Lane Arts Centre, 2023), and TALK (Librairie Yvon Lambert, Paris, 2024). He has been invited to write for the “Death of Painting” chapter for Routledge’s forthcoming “Companion to Contemporary Painting” (2026). James has been awarded several Arts Council Bursary and Project Awards. He teaches at Gorey School of Art and lectures in Psychoanalysis and Art at Trinity College Dublin. fireartsale.org