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arts · Tuesday 11 August 2026 · Various 
Quarters - Val McLoughlin
At Ballina Arts Centre · Barrett Street, Ballina, Co. Mayo
At Ballina Arts Centre · Barrett Street, Ballina, Co. Mayo
Quarters collects paintings Val McLoughlin developed from studies made along the River Moy across all four seasons, which is where the title comes from. Six of the paintings come directly from those riverside studies. Others reference places that matter to him personally, including Cork, Ross and Galicia, and one piece titled Ithaca reaches back to Homer’s Odyssey to work with wandering and homecoming.
McLoughlin describes the process as remembrance and riverscape merging with the tactile business of sketching and painting, so the finished work is not straight landscape recording. Recollections, feelings and sensory impressions gathered at the riverbank were fused intuitively and then developed in the studio, using oils, watercolour, mixed media and printmaking. For anyone who walks the Moy in Ballina regularly, the show gives a second version of a familiar stretch of water. It runs in the same building and over the same dates as Oisin Tozer’s installation In the Pale Light of a Shadow, and both are free.
Ballina Arts Centre sits on Barrett Street in the town centre, a short walk from the Moy itself and from the main shopping streets. Drivers reach Ballina on the N26 from Swinford and Foxford, the N59 from Sligo, and the N57 from Castlebar. Irish Rail runs the Ballina branch line with connections at Manulla Junction for Dublin Heuston and for Westport. Bus Eireann serves Ballina from Castlebar, Sligo, Galway and Dublin, and Local Link covers the smaller north Mayo towns. There is on-street parking nearby and public car parks within a few minutes’ walk of the door.
Heading to Ballina Arts Centre in Ballina? Mayo has plenty more to see. Read the Ballina area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.