Lucid Dreaming—Municipal Gallery, Dún Laoghaire
Gavin Murphy,
Illustrating the concealing power of glasses (Plate 297, Arctic Small), 2023.
Photograph (after Sydney W. Newbery)
Curated by Davey Moor
6 December 2025—15 February 2026
Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council presents Lucid Dreaming, an exhibition of artists who have studied in, are living in, working in or originally from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County for an Open Exhibition at the Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon, Dún Laoghaire from Saturday 6 December 2025 to Sunday 15 February 2026.
The piece ‘Illustrating the concealing power of glasses (Plate 297 Arctic Small)’ is one of a series made with the help of Louis Haugh that recreated photographic tests first conducted for the book ‘Glass in Architecture and Decoration’, by Raymond McGrath & A. C. Frost (Architectural Press, London, revised edition 1961, first published 1937). The original tests showed the extent to which patterned glasses with obscuring finishes prevent objects from being clearly seen.
By the middle of the 20th century a large range of hugely popular patterned glasses with obscuring finishes were being produced, with no fewer than fifty styles by one manufacturer alone. Out of these fifty styles, once a common feature of homes, pubs and businesses alike, only six remain in production today.
Of the patterned glasses photographed in the original 1937 tests (all manufactured by Pilkington Brothers Ltd), Rough Cast, Rolled, Luminating, Narrow Reedlyte, Fluted, Cross Reeded, Rimpled, Hammered, Coralyte, Atlantic, Pacific, Festival, Sparkel, Pinstripe, and Feathered are no longer in production.
The series was first exhibited in the exhibition ‘Remaking the Crust of the Earth’. An accompanying publication with essays by Marysia Wieckiewicz-Carroll and Chris Fite-Wassilak, alongside reproductions from the Raymond McGrath collection in the Irish Architectural Archive was published by Set Margins, Eindhoven.
“Art is a crystallisation of fantasy. Of our fevered desires, flippant whims and untold fears. It—like the ancient practice of lucid dreaming—is difficult to master. Children are more adept at both these things than adults. The subconscious hasn't been walled off yet by the psychological hurdles adolescence brings. The skill of the artist is the skill of the lucid dreamer: that of control. To temper the base air of the psyche to some sort of distilled resolution.”
Davey Moor
Davey Moor has worked as a curator since 2004, in a mix of independent and institutional roles, including Monster Truck, 2008–2014. He was a Director of Kevin Kavanagh Gallery 2008–2010 and a Collection Manager & Registrar at the Irish State Art Collection in the OPW from 2010–2024. He has written and lectured on art. He is currently the Curator at the RHA.