Marked: Bodies, Barcodes and Binding by Barry Wrafter

What to Expect

Marked: Bodies, Barcodes and Binding runs at Clare Museum on Arthur’s Row in Ennis from 17 August to 12 September 2026. It is a show of paintings by Barry Wrafter, an Ennis-based sculptor working here on a flat surface, and it is presented by Clare Arts Office in partnership with Clare Museum. Admission is free and the exhibition is open from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

The work is figurative and deliberately uncomfortable. Wrafter paints hyper-real, faceless figures, bulbous-headed and stripped of individuality, and sets them among numbered bodies, restraints and mechanised processes. The subject is industrial commodification and what happens to a person once a system decides they are material to be processed. Wrafter describes the collected paintings as functioning like a ledger, a quiet and methodical account of what gets manufactured under that logic. It is a short, focused hang rather than a career survey, and it sits well in a county museum where the permanent displays deal with how people in Clare lived and worked.

Good to Know

• Dates: Monday 17 August to Saturday 12 September 2026.
• Opening hours: 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Check with the museum before travelling, as county museum hours vary by day.
• Venue: Clare Museum, Arthur’s Row, Ennis, County Clare, V95 EC92.
• Price: free. No booking needed.
• Artist: Barry Wrafter, sculptor, based in Ennis.
• Presented by Clare Arts Office in partnership with Clare Museum.
• The museum’s permanent Riches of Clare galleries are open at the same time and are also free.

Getting There

Clare Museum is on Arthur’s Row, directly off O’Connell Square in the centre of Ennis, in the same building as the tourist office. It is a walking-only approach: the surrounding streets are narrow and partly pedestrianised, so drivers should use the town centre car parks off Abbey Street, Friar’s Walk or the Market and walk in from there. Ennis is reached from the M18 at the town exits and from the N85 out of west Clare. The bus station and rail station are together on Station Road, about ten minutes on foot from O’Connell Square, served by Bus Eireann routes from Limerick, Galway, Shannon Airport, Kilrush and Ennistymon, and by Irish Rail on the Limerick to Galway line.