Sarah Dwyer: Penti Menti

Sarah Dwyer: Penti Menti
7 February – 17 March

Highlanes Gallery is delighted to present Penti Menti, Sarah Dwyer’s first institutional solo exhibition, marking a return for the artist to her native Ireland.

Born in Cork and now based in London, Dwyer has a significant international profile. Penti Menti brings together new paintings, drawings and ceramic sculpture created specifically for this exhibition, many of them being the largest in the artist’s career to date.

The title refers to the art historical concept of pentimento—from the Italian, pentirsi, “to repent”— which refers to the visible traces of an artist’s revisions within a painting. For Dwyer, these transformations lie at the heart of her practice: painting becomes a process of layering and erasing, of burying and excavating, mirroring how memory and time shape both body and landscape. Her recent work reflects deeply personal experiences: the fragility of the body, personal loss and the persistence of memory. Each trace and echo of a previous stage in the painting becomes an integral part to the sum of its whole. These are felt through rhythm, gesture, and the shifting balance of colour and form.

Her bold palette – electric yellows, luminous pinks and deep marine blues affirm vitality while acknowledging vulnerability. Sharing the same playful defiance, her ceramics embrace risk and resist symmetry. The work has an underlying figurative foundation, which is then fragmented, reconfigured, or partially obscured. Dwyer’s work becomes a site of negotiation between intention and revision, mirroring the psychological or emotional layers of the human experience.

Sarah Dwyer (b. 1974, Ireland) lives and works in London. She earned an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2004) and an MFA from Staffordshire University (2001). Recent exhibitions and venues include Brigitte Mulholland, Paris; Fabian Lang Gallery, Zurich; Larsen Warner, Stockholm; Fitzrovia Chapel, London, Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice Biennale, Italy; Platform with David Zwirner, three solo exhibitions at Josh Lilley Gallery, London; three solo exhibitions at Jane Lombard Gallery, New York; FE McWilliam Gallery, Northern Ireland; Hastings Contemporary, UK; Rochester Art Center, MN- USA; Bloomberg Space, London; Kyubidou Gallery, Tokyo; the Royal College of Art, London; British Art Today, Saatchi Gallery, London; The John Moore’s Painting Prize, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK.

The exhibition is curated by Eamonn Maxwell and supported by an Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon Touring Award and was initiated by Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre and will continue to Limerick City Gallery of Art (18 April – 13 June 2026).

The exhibition continues at Highlanes Gallery until Tuesday 17^th March.

Image: Sarah Dwyer, Lumber Out, 2025, Oil and oil bar on linen (detail)