Fergus Feehily: Everly — Fergus Feehily

Post Times is pleased to present Everly, the first New York solo exhibition by Irish artist Fergus Feehily, whose work has been exhibited internationally for more than 25 years.

Nothing is taken for granted in a painting by Fergus Feehily. He may paint with oil on canvas, or on wood, cardboard, fabric, paper, or perspex. Although I wouldn’t necessarily always say he ‘paints’. Sometimes he does, sure, but at other times the paint arrives on the surface through a contact print, a transfer, or some other indirect encounter with a brush. At times there is hardly any paint at all. It may appear only on the frame, surrounding an arrangement of found fabrics. There is usually some kind of frame, though even that can take the form of painted wood, glitter paper and carpet tacks, a thrift-store find, or something almost entirely wrapped in fabric or obscured by plywood. The hanging mechanism might be prominently visible or hidden from view. Other paintings are left naked, mounted directly to a cleat. Don’t get me wrong, Feehily is deeply committed to painting, but he continually unsettles our expectations of what it might entail.

The one constant is the scale. Feehily returns again and again to a small rectangular format, often around 12 by 10 inches and vertically oriented. Within that modest structure, almost everything remains negotiable. He introduces elements of chance, found compositions, awkward joins, and decisions that can initially appear casual or haphazard but reveal themselves to be full of intention. He avoids the crutch of virtuosity while producing objects that insist on being experienced physically, as much from the edge and around the frame as from directly in front.

The effect is quietly destabilizing. Conventional ideas about what makes a painting complete, well made, or even beautiful are repeatedly brought into question. Yet the work never feels transgressive for the sake of it. Its small scale and humble materials create an intimacy that works against grand gestures. There is warmth in Feehily’s refusal to prove anything. The paintings simply exist as peculiarly beautiful, self-contained presences.

There is something about structure that makes every variation exciting. It’s like the rule of three in comedy: establish a pattern with the first two examples, then break it in a satisfying way with the third. Except every Feehily feels like the third. Moving through the gallery, each work offers another small deviation—a different material, edge, frame, surface, or interruption.

His practice can feel closer to that of an experimental musician than a conventional painter: someone deeply fluent in the rules of a discipline and therefore free to test its limits with unconventional instruments. Beauty in Feehily’s work rarely arrives through refinement alone. It emerges through attention: from worn materials, uncertain edges, and colors that seem to have been discovered rather than selected.

Fergus Feehily (b. 1968, Ireland) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. His recent solo exhibitions include Sydney Sydney, Sydney (2026); Shūrinkan, Kanazawa (2025); Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin (2024); Lulu, Mexico City (2022); La Maison de Rendez-vous, Brussels (2020); Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne, (2019); and MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo (2018). His work has been shown at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; X Museum, Beijing; Tokyo Opera City, Tokyo; June, Berlin; Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles; Capital, San Francisco; the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Sydney Non-objective, Sydney; and Two Rooms, Auckland. TBG+S, Dublin, published The Horse and The Rider, a volume of writing by the artist in 2024 and Feehily’s practice is the subject of a major monograph by Zolo Press, Mexico City/Brussels, with essays by Martin Herbert, Chris Sharp, and Sarah Braman, 2023. Feehily contributed an essay titled White Water to the catalogue, Robert Ryman: The Real Thing, published by Pre-Echo Press and the Barbican Art Gallery, London, on the occoasion of the artist’s retrospective. Feehily’s work has been written about extensively, including Frieze, Artforum, The Japan Times, Irish Times and more. Feehily’s work is included in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, and An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council of Ireland. He received his MFA from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. This will be his first solo exhibition in New York.

This exhibition is kindly supported by Culture Ireland.