Maigh Cuilinn artist Padraic Reaney will have his work showcased at a landmark international exhibition in the United Nations Headquarters, New York, this December, as part of a global celebration marking the organisation’s 80th anniversary.
The exhibition, United Nations – 80 Years for Freedom and Peace, will be unveiled on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at 6 pm in the Curved Wall Area of the UN’s Conference Building. Organised by the Inter-Art Foundation Aiud, Romania, an organisation that Reaney has a long standing relationship with, and will held under the auspices of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of The Gambia to the United Nations, the event marks a world first: artwork from all 193 UN member states displayed together in a single exhibition.
Reaney, born in Carraroe in 1952 and now based in Moycullen, is regarded as one of Ireland’s most distinctive contemporary visual artists. A graduate of the Galway Regional Technical College, he became a full-time artist after college, exhibiting extensively in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as across Europe, North America, South America and Asia. His work is held in major public and private collections, including the Modern Irish Art Collection, the Dublin Writers Museum, the Irish Embassy in London, Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in the US, Siena Art Institute in Italy and the Urawa Wood-Cut Prints Association in Japan.
Internationally, Reaney is noted for his work on The Táin and for his exploration of themes surrounding An Gorta Mór. He represented Ireland in the XVIth Grand Prix International d’Arts Contemporain de Monte Carlo in 1982, where a film on one of his exhibitions was selected as RTÉ’s entry in the Pan Celtic International Film Festival.
His contributions to Irish arts are significant and varied. He has created etching series documenting traditional thatched houses, designed the Liam Ó Flaherty Commemorative Garden sculpture on Inis Mór, curated the Project 06 exhibition in Galway and the Oliver Gogarty 50th Anniversary Art Exhibition in Renvyle, and completed major commissions for Galway County Council, the Galway Chamber of Commerce, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and numerous book and illustration projects.
The upcoming UN exhibition will run from December 9, to 12, and will feature 216 artists across six continents. The project was made possible through the efforts of Dr. Pál Osváth, Head of the Liaison Office of the Republic of The Gambia in Romania, working in partnership with Inter-Art Foundation president and curator ?tefan Bolog.
For Reaney, whose work has long engaged with themes of history, landscape and cultural memory, the invitation represents a prestigious international platform and a significant moment for Galway’s artistic community.
