The word Dreamshook[1] describes the feeling of waking from a dream, when reality is destabilised and realms of possibility linger and dissipate. Nolan’s exhibition of hand-tufted tapestry, drawing, and sculpture, represents thresholds, dream states and narratives that strain the distinctions between the immaterial and the actual. The work develops from her sustained fascination with the human desire to find meaning or order in the universe, and the frameworks that shape our understanding of the world.

Nolan looks to the Middle Ages and early Renaissance as an era that resonates with now. It was a turbulent period marked by religious and political upheaval, a time transformed by plague, wars and famine. Cultural and technological developments in Europe cultivated profound ideological change, challenged the nature of authority, and reshaped what it might mean to be human. The work draws on artefacts and ideas from those formative times that helped pattern the present-day: from the emergence of humanism, dramatic developments in Italian painting and architecture; to the invention of the printing press and the use of moveable type in Europe.

She focuses on the figure of Aldo Manuzio (c.1450–1515), an innovative, influential printer and publisher based in Venice. As the century turned Manuzio, widely known as Aldus Manutius, transformed the culture of reading in small and large ways: introducing the semi-colon and italics; and more significantly producing numerous, portable enchiridons (pocket-sized books), beautifully designed with wide margins and modern typography. In his promotion of key writings by influential contemporary humanists and numerous Greek and Roman classical works – newly, conscientiously edited and never before published in Europe – he hoped to champion the idea of human perfectibility and foster a more ‘civilised’ world.

At the centre of the exhibition is a pair of large-scale arched tapestries featuring apparitions.  In Aldus Dreams of a Plentiful Supply of Good Books (2026), Nolan imagines Aldos’ dream with numerous nods to the art and architecture the early Renaissance.  Nearby, Dreamshook (2026) stages an unyielding bed adrift on an unstable floor, a loose constellation of abstract forms. It is accompanied by Oh! (2026), a curtain that seems paradoxically still and in motion. A cluster of drawings capture fragments of thought—quotes, annotations, and speculative reflections on dreams and readers across time. Moving fluidly between the intimate and the expansive, the tangible and the imagined, the exhibition invites viewers into a space where dreams press insistently on reality—shaping it, unsettling it, and revealing its hidden contours.

From Manuzio’s ambitions to publish “a plentiful supply of books,” to moments of hope and transformation, Nolan invokes these histories to signal how the architectures of belief and knowledge we inhabit often stretch the limits of credibility. Drawing on literature, history, religion, and mythology, the works ground far-reaching subjects in intimate, material encounters, exploring how meaning and connection are forged in the turmoil of the present day. Dreamshook invites speculation on how the dynamics of wonder, belief and power shape both expectations and human experience, and how we encounter the world in all its messiness and debatable beauty.

[1] The word “dreamshook” was coined by Nolan in 2017.

Artist Isabel Nolan’s exhibitions are rooted in big subjects: cosmology and deep history; religion and mythology; mortality and love. Working across sculpture, textiles, paintings, drawings, photography and writing, Nolan responds to the fundamental question of how humans bring the world into meaning. Looking at the history of aesthetics, theology, technology, and ideas, Nolan examines how we frame and make our lived experience. Whether inspired by the knees of a 17th century sculpture, the status of a Neolithic artefact, or a solar storm in the 19^th century, she looks for ways to like, or even love, the difficult and complex human world we’ve made.

Born in Dublin, Nolan studied at the National College of Art & Design, and has had significant solo exhibitions in Ireland and internationally in spaces including: Château La Coste, Aix-en-Provence, France; London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE, London; Grazer Kunstverein, Graz; Mercer Union, Toronto and Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and Musée d’art moderne de Saint Etienne. Her work has been exhibited at Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Artspace, Sydney; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh; Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea; and Beijing Art Museum of the Imperial City, Beijing.

She has participated in biennales including Lofoten International Arts Festival, Glasgow International, EVA International, Limerick, and in 2025 she was a commissioned artist for the 13^th Liverpool Biennial, curated by Marie-Anne McQuay. In 2026 Nolan will have a comprehensive solo exhibition at Southwark Park Galleries, London, travelling to Bluecoat, Liverpool, in 2027. She lives in Dublin, and works in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. Isabel is represented by the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, and Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York.

Commissioner: Culture Ireland
Curator: Georgina Jackson with The Douglas Hyde Gallery of Contemporary Art
Producer: Cian O’Brien
Assistant Curator: Niamh Darling
Co-ordinator: Rachel McIntyre
Installation Team: Bernard Smyth, Edward Cunniffe, Frank Prendergast and Sara Murphy.
Tapestry Production: Manufacture de Tapis de Bourgogne
Sculpture Production: Space Forms
Designer: Stina Sandström
Communications: Sam Talbot, Isabel Davies and Gwyneth Tambe-Green (Sam Talbot PR), and Aileen Galvin and Enya McIntyre (Sync and Swim).
Venice Co-ordinator: Diego Carpentiero
Venice Events Co-ordinator: Alice Tibaldi Chiesa
Opening Party Producers: SoSimpatico

Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council.  With Lead Partner Trinity College Dublin and Principal Partner Dublin City Council for Ireland at Venice 2026.

Proudly supported by Headline Partner Clinch Wealth Management and Partner IPUT Real Estate Dublin.

With the support of: Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; Tia Collection; The Embassy of Ireland, Italy; Stoney Road Press; Manufacture de Tapis de Bourgogne; Select Aperitivo; and Diageo Italia S.p.A.

Educational partners for the Ireland at Venice Mediator Programme: Burren College of Art; Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire; Limerick School of Art and Design, TUS; MTU Crawford College of Art & Design, Cork; National College of Art & Design, Dublin; The Department of History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin; and the School of Art History and Cultural Policy at University College Dublin.