Christopher Mahon—Keep Cave

Pallas Projects are pleased to present Christopher Mahon—Keep Cave, the seventh exhibition of our 2026 Artist-Initiated Projects programme.

Copying was an amazing way of learning, it is the right way to learn a practice, to imitate others. Usually I make correlations to that outline. The language, the context is nothing to me. Form is the thing that will make work stand in any context. That strength is the thing I look for. It is a vessel that comes from something real, that comes from something in life. Juxtaposition or shape - I very much see that in human experience rather than in perception. One's own voice is the problem you are dealing with. Increasingly what I am striving to do is rid my use of language and those paths, those automatic identity paths that you make just because it is who you are. I've found works by other artists so thrilling and I've lived in them and that is an ongoing communication with an artist. I have that experience with my own work in such a burning way. And I know what those bits of my own work are and I know what they are in the work that I love. Works that deal with life so radically. Exploding off and out. Rule breaker. Unconscious, completely offending and trampling on people's ideas of what is proper and legitimate.

An exhibition conceived as a site-specific experience, brings together new works and found images, unfolding as an ambiguous threshold - an environment where carved stone carving, cast brass, images and sound coexist and interact.

Biography:

Christopher Mahon is an Irish artist. He attended the École Jacques Lecoq Movement Research Laboratory, Paris, holds an MA in Art and Research Collaboration from IADT and was a resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam 2018–2019. Mahon has exhibited in Ireland and internationally. Projects include The Cash Shop, Gort (2025), Staying With The Trouble, IMMA (2024) Sincere, or what you will, VISUAL Carlow (2024), Aswan International Sculpture Symposium (2021), Rijksakademie Open Studios, Amsterdam (2019), Le Menagerie de Verre, Paris (2019), Townhouse Gallery, Cairo (2019), RGKSKSRG Cribs, Dublin (2019), Double Negative, ARKO Art Centre, Seoul (2018) and Couched, Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2018). Mahon’s work is held in private and public collections in Ireland, Europe and North America.

Artist-Initiated Projects at Pallas Projects/Studios is an open-submission, annual gallery programme of 8 x 3-week exhibitions taking place from January - December 2026. This unique programme of funded, artist-initiated projects selected via open call is highly accessible to artists, with a focus on early career, emerging artists and recent graduates. Projects are supplemented with artists' talks, texts, workshops or performances, and gallery visits by colleges and local schools.