Conor Harrington: Pallium

7 Nov 2025-6 Feb 2026

Conor Harrington, Waltz Around The Divide, 2024

Overview

Harrington is known for his monumental canvases of male figures dressed in the cultural uniforms of eighteenth-century Europe: Georgian court attire, Napoleonic military dress, ermine, wigs, stockings, and sashes. Garlanded in pastel bunting, his protagonists are caught between combat and collapse. Their costumes suggest power, yet their hesitant, unstable gestures betray its performance as awkward, fragile, and uncertain.

Harrington’s Irish identity is central to this perspective. Shaped by Ireland’s colonial history, his work carries scepticism towards imperial and institutional authority. He rejects traditional hierarchies, interrogating instead the symbolic systems – clothing, flags, ritual – that sustain them. He describes this as “punching up”: using the language of power not to glorify but to critique.

Artists