Live Painting Performance in Kenmare Butter Market for Culture Night
A Night of Expressionist Art Performance in Kenmare
On Culture Night, I set up right on the street in Kenmare—canvas strapped to the old stone wall of the Butter Market, no easel, no studio lighting, just me, the public, and the raw impulse to create. The energy was electric. Locals and passersby gathered as I worked directly on the surface, pouring out movement and colour in real time. This wasn’t planned. That’s the beauty of it. Live art—chaotic, expressive, and rooted in the moment—becomes a shared experience when it spills into public space. That night in Kenmare, the painting wasn’t the only thing alive—the entire street felt like part of the canvas.
Surrounded by the building’s vivid history—from its 19th-century origins as a bustling butter market to its reimagined life as an artistic hub—I began creating under streetlights and fading daylight. The atmosphere buzzed, music pulsed through the air, and with every vigorous stroke, I channeled my expressive, intuitive style—gestural marks driven by subconscious impulse and emotional momentum.
The Energy of Culture Night Meets Pigsy’s Expressive Gesture
PIGSY standing on an upturned beer bottle crate creating the unexpected on the street in Kenmare for Culture Night
Culture Night is more than just an evening—it’s a vibrant celebration of arts and culture across Ireland, where streets come alive with performances, installations, and communal creativity. In Kenmare, the Butter Market becomes a central stage for artists, musicians, and community to converge. I joined that celebration with live painting performance culture night Ireland, offering something both raw and immediate.
As I painted, the sounds of local music and the hum of crowds gave life to the moment. I made room for spontaneous creativity, feeding on the collective energy of Kenmare’s community. And yes—between brush strokes, I happily partook in a refreshing Torc Brewing Killarney beer, a small pleasure that grounded the intensity of creating in public.
Why live Art matters - At the Butter Market
Live painting in Kenmare, interactive art experiences, and public art in Kerry are transformative acts. Bringing art into the streets and onlookers into the studio blurs lines and invites people in. In venues like the Kenmare Butter Market, which is steeped in heritage but pulsing with contemporary life, live performances deepen the connection between art, place, and audience.
My practice is raw and intuitive expression. Performing live lets me literally overlay subconscious process onto public space. Each dripped line, bold stroke, and colour distortion becomes a shared imprint of the moment and creates a connection between the audience watching the creation of the work and then the viewer of the completed artwork.
Reflections After the Final Stroke
PIGSY’s Culture Night, Kenmare 2021
When the sun finally slipped behind the rooftops of Kenmare, I stepped back and looked at what remained. Paint-splattered canvas, gathered applause and curious faces glowing with interest.
These are the after images that matter. Live art in Ireland, performance art in Kenmare and Kenmare Butter Market events - these aren't just tangiable moments on a CV, but are memorable connections between artist, audience, and place. The memories will stick with me and I hope they will stick with anyone who was there on the night. And for those that weren’t there, the is videos on Youtube that was filmed with a Vintage Brownie camera which added another layer of interest to this event.
I’m excited to continue working in venues like this (both inside and out!) spaces where art and architecture intersect, tradition meets modernity, and each gesture becomes part of a broader cultural conversation, particularly on a night like the island wide Irish celebration of Culture Night.
A different kind of studio space
There’s something about making work in the open with no walls, no white cubes, no buffers. Just a canvas on a stone wall, standing on a upturned beer bottle crate and the street beneath that and people who didn’t necessarily come to see art, but end up part of it anyway. That’s the beauty of Culture Night. It hijacks the ordinary. A quiet street corner becomes a stage. Someone out walking their dog becomes your unexpected audience. Kids ask questions. Locals shout encouragement. You feel the place breathing with you.
For me, that kind of setting strips things back to what matters: the immediacy of making, the risk of doing it live, and the chance to leave something behind that’s real. Not polished. Not framed. Just raw energy translated into paint in a public space that usually isn’t meant for it. That tension is where I do my best work.
Culture Night isn’t about showing what you’ve already made—it’s about what you’re willing to make in front of people, right there, right then. That’s the kind of gallery I’m chasing: unpredictable, a bit wild, and open to whoever’s watching when the first mark hits the wall.
PIGSY looks at the artwork he created on the streets of Kenmare for Culture Night 2021
The Work, After the Noise
Now it hangs, the finished PIGSY piece. Canvas stretched and battened to the Kenmare Butter Market Gallery wall, silent again. The noise is gone, I’m no longer on the street, and I’m standing in front of what’s been created.
It’s always strange seeing the work thing after the fact. The energy of the night is still in it and every mark, every splash of paint holds the tension of being made under pressure, in public, instinctively without a plan. That’s the part I like. It’s not about polish or perfection. It’s about the trace of something real, happening in real time with authenticity.
No edits. No filters. Just paint, surface, and a bit of madness. That’s the work. And it’s done - until the next one.
