Waterford Arts

Plant

New solo exhibition by Debbie Godsell

7 November – 12 December 2026

Opening: Saturday 7 November 2026, 3–5PM

GOMA Gallery of Modern Art, Waterford, is pleased to present Plant, a new solo exhibition by artist Debbie Godsell.

Godsell presents a new body of hybrid works that occupy an ambiguous space between image, object, and surface. Combining upholstery, repurposed textiles, sculpture, photography, and printmaking, the works feature layered and manipulated imagery disrupted through padding, stitching, and printing processes.

The artist explores how landscape, folklore, and historical narratives shape cultural identity and collective memory. Drawing on contested and culturally sensitive histories, Godsell examines the stories through which Irish identity has been constructed, paying particular attention to the tensions and omissions embedded within them. Romanticised landscapes and inherited myths are reconsidered as sites where questions of belonging, privilege, conflict, and exclusion continue to resonate. Godsell uses stereotypical, fetishised, and contested landscapes to consider how ideas of identity remain bound to land and its representation. Subversively humorous and psychologically charged, the works reflect the cultural narratives that continue to shape collective experience.

About the artist:

Debbie Godsell is an established Cork-based visual artist who has maintained a professional practice since graduating with an MA in art in 2001. Recent major solo exhibitions at the Source Arts Centre and the Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre focused on identity formation, definitions of nationality and cultural tension.

The artist re-examines dominant historiographies and challenges assumptions about what we think we know about our shared past. Her practice spans large-scale print installations, sculpture, film, textile, and digital media. Debbie’s work is held in the National Collection, the Crawford Art Gallery, the OPW, and the National Gallery of Ireland. She has been artist in residence for ‘A Space for Lismore’ 2026, where she developed a collaborative community based project. Her solo exhibition Flail was shortlisted for the International Association of Art Critics annual honorary prize for an outstanding exhibition in Ireland, 2025. She is a recipient of the Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary Awards 2026, 2023 and 2022, Sample Studios Sample 15 Bursary Award 2026, Cork County Arts Bursary 2022, Cork County Council Ballinglen Artist Residency 2019, Cork County Council Tyrone Guthrie Artist Bursary 2017 Award. . Debbie is a full member of Backwater Artists group where she has her studio. She is also a long-term member of Cork printmakers where she produces much of her expanded print project.