Isabel Nolan
Kerlin Gallery is delighted to announce
“Look at the Harlequins!”
a solo exhibition by Isabel Nolan.
‘Stop moping! … Look at the Harlequins!’
‘What harlequins? Where?’
‘Oh, everywhere. All around you. Trees are harlequins, words are harlequins. So are situations and sums. Put two things together – jokes, images – and you get a triple harlequin. Come on! Play! Invent the world! Invent reality!’
— Vladimir Nabokov, Look at the Harlequins! (1974)
Ahead of Nolan’s forthcoming representation of Ireland at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, this exhibition offers an insight into the artist’s practice characterised by its shifting movement between mediums, where sculpture, textiles and works on paper are held in lively dialogue, celebrating and communing with historical figures and works of art that speak to us across centuries.
The works in this exhibition look, in particular, towards the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance – an era marked by transformative technological changes, pandemic, religious and political conflict, not unlike today. Nolan seizes upon small, perhaps overlooked, details from historic works that reveal interpersonal dynamics, or reflect upon the place of humans within the world. A towel draped over a wall adds an unexpected touch of domesticity and intimacy to a religious scene by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, for instance; while the legendary Wolf of Gubbio, allegedly pacified by St Francis, ruminates on the dynamic between humans and animals, the wild and tame, the divine and the profane.
Across these works, Nolan continues her probing investigation into how humans orient themselves in a vast and unstable universe, in disorienting times. Themes of cosmology, mortality, belief and wonder resonate through drawings and objects that are grounded in craft yet open onto expansive intellectual terrains. Her works give generous form to fundamental questions about the ways the chaos of the world is made beautiful, or given meaning through human activity. In concert, her artworks feel equally enchanted by and afraid of the world around us, expressing humanity’s fear of mortality and deep need for connection. We are invited to consider the fragile architectures of knowledge and the playful unreliability of invention: a world where, indeed, harlequins might yet be found.
Isabel Nolan
Eurydice (dead again...) and Orpheus, 2022
water-based oil on canvas
70 x 60 x 2 cm / 27.6 x 23.6 x .8 in
Isabel Nolan
Splendid and Pointless, 2025
10mm solid round steel, paint, 4 elements
2/2 from a variable edition of 2, each edition in different colours
240.5 x 119.7 x 119.7 cm / 94.7 x 47.1 x 47.1 in
Isabel Nolan
More like the world, 2024
pencil, watercolour and marker on paper
29.5 x 20.5 cm / 11.6 x 8.1 in
40.4 x 30.3 x 3.2 cm / 15.9 x 11.9 x 1.3 in framed
Isabel Nolan
The wolf who made a city tremble c.1216 (After Sassetta), 2023
hand-tufted 100% New Zealand Wool, 15 mm pile
300 x 200 cm / 118.1 x 78.7 in
Isabel Nolan
Seven fingered wish, 2020
coloured pencil on paper
41.7 x 29.6 cm / 16.4 x 11.7 in
48.5 x 35.9 x 4 cm / 19.1 x 14.1 x 1.6 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Mirror, 2005
coloured pencil on paper
29.5 x 41.5 cm / 11.6 x 16.3 in
36 x 48.5 x 3.8 cm / 14.2 x 19.1 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
The world is dusty, 2020
coloured pencil on paper
71 cm x 99.5 cm / 28 in x 39.2 in
77.5 x 105.5 x 3.7 cm / 30.5 x 41.5 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Sisyphus, 2014
coloured pencil on paper
29.5 x 41.5 cm / 11.6 x 16.3 in
36 x 48.5 x 3.8 cm / 14.2 x 19.1 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Nine Days, 2021
coloured pencil on paper
29.5 x 41.5 cm / 11.6 x 16.3 in
36 x 48.5 x 3.8 cm / 14.2 x 19.1 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Narcissus’ pool (for SMcK), 2017
steel and paint
5 x 204 x 204 cm / 2 x 80.3 x 80.3 in
Isabel Nolan
"still felt Gravity", 2023
collage paper clip coloured pencil on paper
29.5 x 41.5 cm / 11.6 x 16.3 in
36 x 48.5 x 3.8 cm / 14.2 x 19.1 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Writhing, Bending, Folding, pleating (S.W.), 2024
pencil and marker on paper
29.5 x 20.5 cm / 11.6 x 8.1 in
46.9 x 36 x 3 cm / 18.5 x 14.2 x 1.2 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Love, 2005 - 2010
pencil on paper
20.5 x 29.5 cm / 8.1 x 11.6 in
27.5 x 39.7 x 3.8 cm / 10.8 x 15.6 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
Bird of prey, 2007-09
watercolour and pencil on paper
30.5 x 23 cm / 12 x 9.1 in
35.5 x 28 x 3.1 cm / 14 x 11 x 1.2 in framed
Isabel Nolan
"A sudden spasm of space"
pencil on paper
29.5 x 41.5 cm / 11.6 x 16.3 in
35.9 x 48.5 x 3.9 cm / 14.1 x 19.1 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
look at the harlequins, 2022
coloured pencil on paper
42 x 29.7 cm / 16.5 x 11.7 in
51.5 x 38.1 x 3.9 cm / 20.3 x 15 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
we forget everything, 2020
coloured pencil on paper
42 x 59.4 cm / 16.5 x 23.4 in
48.5 x 66 x 3.8 cm / 19.1 x 26 x 1.5 in framed
Isabel Nolan
hot dense and smooth, 2020
coloured pencil on paper
42 x 59.2 cm / 16.5 x 23.3 in
55.8 x 73 x 3 cm / 22 x 28.7 x 1.2 in framed
Ireland at Venice
Isabel Nolan
with Curator Georgina Jackson and The Douglas Hyde and Producer Cian O'Brien
will represent Ireland at the 61st international art exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia in 2026.
We are delighted to announce the launch of new editions. All proceeds from sales go to support Ireland at Venice.
with thanks to
Stoney Road Press and Space Forms
for their support in the production of these works.
Isabel Nolan
Island 2025
hand-tufted 100% New Zealand Wool
edition of 3
200 x 156 cm / 78.7 x 61.4 in
produced with Maufacture De Tapis De Bourgogne
in support of Ireland at Venice
€20,000 ex VAT
Isabel Nolan
Dawncare, 2025
6 plate Intaglio print
edition of 60, 10 AP, 3 PP
40.5 x 50 cm / 15.9 x 19.7 in (unframed)
produced with Stoney Road Press in support of Ireland at Venice
€ 500 ex VAT
Isabel Nolan
Towel, 2025
solid round steel, paint,
edition of 10 + 1 AP
85 x 45.5 x 2 cm / 33.5 x 17.9 x .8 in
produced with Space Forms
in support of Ireland at Venice
€ 6,000 ex VAT
Isabel Nolan
Splendid and Pointless, 2025
10mm solid round steel, paint, 4 elements
2/2 from a variable edition of 2, each edition in different colours
240.5 x 119.7 x 119.7 cm / 94.7 x 47.1 x 47.1 in
about the artist
Photo: Ste Murray
Isabel Nolan
b. 1974, Dublin, Ireland
Isabel Nolan has an expansive practice that incorporates sculptures, paintings, textile works, photographs, writing and works on paper. Her subject matter is similarly comprehensive, taking in cosmological phenomena, religious reliquaries, Greco-Roman sculptures and literary/historical figures, examining the behaviour of humans and animals alike. These diverse artistic investigations are driven by intensive research, but the end result is always deeply personal and subjective. Exploring the “intimacy of materiality”, Nolan’s work ranges from the architectural – steel sculptures that frame or obstruct our path – to small handmade objects in clay, hand-tufted wool rugs illuminated with striking cosmic imagery, to drawings and paintings using humble gouache or colouring pencils. In concert, they feel equally enchanted by and afraid of the world around us, expressing humanity’s fear of mortality and deep need for connection as well as its startling achievements in art and thought. Driven by “the calamity, the weirdness, horror, brevity and wonder of existing alongside billions of other preoccupied humans”, her works give generous form to fundamental questions about the ways the chaos of the world is made beautiful or given meaning through human activity.
BEDROCK, 13th Liverpool Biennial, UK
In 2026, Nolan will represent Ireland at the 61st Venice Biennale. Significant solo exhibitions include Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence (2023); Void Gallery, Derry (2022); Solstice Arts Centre, Navan (2021); Boxes Art Museum, Guangzhou (2019); Kunstverein Langenhagen, Germany (2018); Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2017); Douglas Hyde Gallery (2017); Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG), Vancouver (2016) ; Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada (2017) and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2014).