One of my fondest visual memories as a child was traveling home one night in a car with family after visiting relatives. I watched the moon out the window as it seemed to follow us, flickering its silver light through the trees. Moments like that really fascinated me, and my love for stargazing and lunar activities has always stayed with me.
Biography
Derval Freeman is an Irish visual artist based in County Wicklow, whose vibrant, colour-driven practice explores memory, nature, and the cosmos. Born in Nenagh, County Tipperary, she moved to County Clare before graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design in 1996. Early in her career, she balanced life’s demands with her dedication to painting; today, she works full-time, creating immersive works that combine emotional depth with a sophisticated exploration of colour and abstraction.
Her work draws inspiration from the landscapes of Wicklow, the mountains, forests, and skies, as well as the vastness of the universe, reflecting on human identity, existence, and her personal experience of being adopted. These themes are expressed through a practice that navigates the microcosm of personal memory and the macrocosm of universal wonder.
Derval’s work has been recognized in numerous national and international forums. She was selected for the Art Riddler Exhibition and awarded First Prize at Climate Action for All – Climeaction, Cork City, reflecting both her artistic innovation and engagement with socially and environmentally conscious practice. In 2025, she participated in several major exhibitions, including, Cairde Visual, Kilkenny Arts Festival and Art Riddler, further establishing her as a leading contemporary painter in Ireland.
She has held multiple solo exhibitions, most recently Wanderings (2023) at The Seamus Ennis Arts Centre’s Easter Snow Gallery, opened by Aosdána member Eamon Colman, who also contributed an essay on her work. Derval has been awarded artist residencies at Cill Rialaig (2007, 2022).
Across her work, Derval continues to explore the interplay between nature, colour, and human experience, inviting viewers to reflect on their own place within both the intimate and infinite landscapes of life.
‘In One Place’
In ascending flight, in descending float.
The stop, the hover, the one space in time.
The swell, the weightlessness,
as I watched the sun meet thin silver.
It echoed and echoed,
in the rising moon, the moon, that moon.
Of lunar diamonds in an endless light,
that glistens the sea.
The in between.
Oh watchful eye of the night, take over, set free.
Ascend, descend, breathe in, breathe out.
The moon that holds,
the moon that follows.
Although not through the trees of my child eyes,
I am still at home, in the every now.
The salt cloud window, the colours that move.
A world’s collision, so pure and few.
As the stars move, as too the sea.
All that I love is all right here.
I am in one place,
in one place.
Written by Derval Freeman
Inspired by the Moon reflecting on the sea while sailing home from France to Ireland.
Paul Gauguin – An essay I did at the University of Limerick (UL) 2007 for anyone who may be interested.
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2023–24 · Wanderings, Easter Snow Gallery, Seamus Ennis Arts Centre (TSEAC), Naul,
Fingal, Co. Dublin
2021 · A Way to Equilibrium, Signal Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow
2018 · Solace II – Entering the Dream, Ranelagh Arts Centre, Dublin
2017 · Solace I, Signal Arts Centre, Bray, Co. Wicklow
2007 · Urban Trail, Frame Gallery, Limerick
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
– A Community of Hope, Flux Gallery, Art Auction hosted by Gormley’s Auctions 4 Chatham Row, Dublin 2
– Art Riddler Exhibition, 1 Charlemont Square, Dublin 2
– Climate Action for All – Winner, Climeaction Art Competition, Cork City
– The Secret of Colour and Light (Selected by Sahoko Blake), Walters, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin
– Kilkenny Arts Festival, Kilkenny Art Gallery, Co. Kilkenny
– 100/50, Unit 1 Gallery & Workshop, London, UK
– Cairde Visual, Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo
– Paint Waterford, ArtForm Dunmore East, Mount Congreve Gardens, Co. Waterford
2024
– OXO Outset Xmas Open, Outset Gallery, Galway
– 1st Annual Exhibition (Selected by Francis Tansey), An Chéad Tine, Kilkenny
– In Between (Selected by Patricia Burns), Walters, Dún Laoghaire, Dublin
– Europe in the Heart of Ireland, European Parliament Liaison Office & Hamilton Gallery, Dublin
– Crosscurrents (Selected), Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire
– Lines of the Land (Selected), An Chéad Tine Gallery, Kilkenny
– 50/50 (Selected Artists), Unit 1 Gallery, London
– Interdependence (Selected by Cian McLoughlan), Walters, Dún Laoghaire
– Postcards for Gaza, The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co. Clare
2023
– Conversation with Trees (Selected by Eamon Colman), Walters, Dún Laoghaire
– Transience (Selected by Carmel Benson), Walters, Dún Laoghaire
– Impressions, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo
– Ancestral Houses and Meditations, Hamilton Gallery, touring Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu,
Chongqing & Hong Kong
– St. Brigid’s Well (Invited Artists), Hamilton Gallery, Sligo
2022
– Hidden Histories (Invited Artists), The Narrow Space Gallery, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary
– Bealtaine (Invited Artists), Carrickahowley Gallery, Portland, Maine, USA
– Three Rooms (Selected), Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo
– St. Brigid’s Well (Invited Artists), Hamilton Gallery, Sligo
– 22nd Annual SAS Members Exhibition, Signal Arts Centre, Bray
Awards
2025 · Climate Action for All – First Prize Winner, Climeaction, Cork City
Gallery Representation
1608 Gallery, Bushmills, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland
Residencies
2022 · The Cill Rialaig Project, Artist’s Retreat, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry
2007 · The Cill Rialaig Project, Artist’s Retreat, Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry
Reviews
Review of A Place Called Home by Eamon Colman:
Derval Freeman 