Memorial Exhibition
Anna Barden
Lavit Gallery
5 February – 14 February 2026

Opening reception Thursday 05 February, 5.30-6.30pm

The exhibition will take place at Lavit Gallery in collaboration with Backwater Artists Group.

Anna Barden was an artist who worked and lived in Cork city. She passed away unexpectedly on 31 December 2024. This exhibition, organised in collaboration with Backwater Artist Group, friends, family and colleagues, serves as a tribute to Anna and her artistic life and brings together a selection of work by the artist. Anna’s art practice encompassed drawing, painting sewing, short text pieces and ceramics.

Anna was a member of Backwater Artists Network, since its inception in 2020. She exhibited in several Backwater Artists Group member exhibitions including; A Moment Before Lockdown, Studio 12, Backwater Artists Group (2020), Remaining Places, Fota House & Gardens (2021), Drawn Works, The Long Space, Backwater Artists Group (2024) and Deep Time, in Spike Island (2024).  In 2022, she had a solo exhibition in our Studio 12 exhibition/project space, Falter. Check. Resolve which consisted of 18 drawings, 7 ceramic works and an accompanying text drawn on the wall, which served as both statement and memory. The work explored themes of mental illness and chess as seen through the world of Beckett’s ‘Murphy’. In 2024, she was awarded the Backwater Artists Network Residency and had a studio onsite for 6 months. She used the studio consistently and prolifically, to create a large body of work, some of which was due to be exhibited in The Long Space in February 2025. Anna had also exhibited ceramic pieces in the Summer Exhibition at Lavit Gallery in 2023 and had contributed paintings from her Yellow Cup series to the Winter Exhibition shortly before her passing in 2024.