Mary Bowen Galvin

Bio

Mary Bowen Galvin is an artist based in her hometown of Cork City. She holds an M.A. by Research in Fine Art (2012) and a BA (Hons) in Fine Art with Distinction (2009) from MTU Crawford College of Art and Design.

Solo Shows include…The Feminine Principle, Blue House Gallery, 2026 and Ad Pondus Omnium, 2024, The Vaults, Lavit Gallery. Group Exhibitions include Women in Art Fair, Oxo Gallery, London 2026, Lavit Gallery Members 2026. LHQ Winter Exhibition 2025, Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition (2025, 2023, 2022, 2021). Cairde Visual Art Festival 2025 and Art Riddler 2025.

Mary is a co-founder of Womanifest Collective along with Eadaoin Glynn, and Oonagh Hurley. Collaborations include, Transitus, Backwater Artist Studios 2024. Upcoming shows include Threshold 2026, Laneway Gallery, Cork and The Feminine Article, Cnoc Bui 2027

Her work is in the collections of Munster Technological University and CETB student collection as well as private collections in UK, France, USA and Ireland.

Artist Statement

I am primarily a painter, though my practice is inherently multidisciplinary. I allow each body of work to dictate the materials it requires, embracing whatever form best serves the ideas at its core. This fluid approach gives me the freedom to work intuitively, aligning material with meaning.

My work currently is exploring themes of conflict, memory, and power. I am interested in the potentiality of devalued and discarded materials and the possibility of their re-invention or resurrection.

Heavily influenced by religious iconography, I use this influence in seeking to address the concept of how power can be presented and re-enforced through images and constructed artefacts; and how in turn these visuals can then be used to dictate and control behaviour.