Making and Momentum, an unmissable exhibition inspired by the work of the legendary Irish architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray, opens this weekend.

The travelling exhibition Making and Momentum, In Conversation with Eileen Gray was born in Roquebrune, France, in June 2021 in tandem with the restoration of Gray’s E-1027 Villa on the Côte d’Azur.

As the home of one of the largest collections of Eileen Gray’s work in the world, the National Museum of Ireland is a very fitting host to this exhibition, and the museum is thrilled to be supporting the refurbishment of the E-1027 Villa.

Eileen Gray, one of the first women to be admitted to the Slade School of Fine Art, worked in many mediums, from weaving and rug-making to metalwork and painting, and this exhibition is a tribute to her incredible global influence across artistic disciplines.

The Association Cap Moderne are the custodians of Gray’s villa and they have been working in collaboration with the mastermind behind Making and Momentum, to celebrate the legacy of modern Irish art and design worldwide.

Richard Malone, an award-winning Irish artist and designer, is the curator behind this eclectic exhibition, featuring works by the artists Ceadogán Rugs, Sara Flynn, Laura Gannon, Mainie Jellett, Richard Malone, Mourne Textiles and Niamh O’Malley.

Collectively, these leading visual artists have numerous accomplishments and accolades, including the Royal Hibernian Academy commission, the Loewe Craft Prize and the International Woolmark Prize, and they were selected for their multidisciplinary and experimental approaches in their work.

While the work itself is fresh and new, all the pieces featured in Making and Momentum are reminiscent of age-old skills and techniques, juxtaposed with radical modernism. The exhibition seeks to highlight that these skills and, indeed, Gray’s own legacy are not a thing of the past, but are instead part of the present.

Malone spoke of his own introduction to the legendary designer, “Growing up in rural Wexford, the legend and work of Eileen Gray existed in a kind of ether, another world. Gray’s work came into my life through storytelling… folklore, even. It appeared both mythical and magical. Daringly original, radically created and lovingly executed.

“Her objects were explained as functional, yet were entirely different from all of the things I associated with ‘function’. The work had, and has, a presence to it that speaks to the human condition, of the human body, which I believe transcends the more recent academic study of her work – as well as the placing of her work within the construct of ‘time’.”

Malone explained it was his grandmother, herself an artist, “who always told me of this radical, queer Irish woman who went on to dominate the design world. My grandmother, Nellie, relished the fact that Gray was female, that she created opportunity for herself, that her design language was for nobody else. Every piece seems like a creation of something completely new, genuine and informed by this complete acceptance of the self.”

Once Making and Momentum has finished exhibiting, the works featured will be auctioned and the proceeds split between the artists and the Association Cap Moderne to support the restoration of Eileen Gray’s villa.