The shape of longing

Taylor Galleries presents The shape of longing, a new exhibition by Niamh Porter, curated by Eamonn Maxwell and presented in Taylor Two, our newly established second-floor exhibition space dedicated to artists who are currently unrepresented and who have graduated in the last 10 years, giving an important platform to early career artists in Ireland. Niamh Porter makes paintings of rooms and objects that quietly reflect on time, intimacy, and desire. Her recent work draws from the series With time and straw, the medlars ripen, a title borrowed from a Provençal proverb and from Eileen Gray’s home, Tempe à Pailla, exploring modernist spaces designed by and for women and the patience required for things to come into their own. Through subtle shifts of light, shadow, and texture, Porter captures the tactility of domestic interiors — cool chrome, crisp porcelain, soft pillows, and carefully arranged spaces that suggest calm, autonomy, and closeness. Her paintings transform functional objects into quiet symbols of nourishment, curiosity, and stillness. More recent works move away from specific architectural sites toward individual objects found in image archives, beautiful things that remain out of reach. In this shift, Porter explores desire and longing, using painting as a way to experience and hold what cannot be owned.