“Drawing Light” exhibition at Brú na Bóinne

The “Drawing Light” exhibition at Brú na Bóinne opened to the public on 1 June and continues until 31 August 2026. The exhibition showcases new tapestry works by members of Contemporary Tapestry Artists Ireland, inspired by the ancient landscape and megalithic art of the Boyne Valley monuments.

In Drawing Light, nine weavers respond to the ancient landscape and monuments of Brú na Bóinne.

In preparing for the exhibition, each weaver spent time reflecting on the lives of the people who built and used these remarkable monuments thousands of years ago. They considered the mysteries of the spiral, lozenge and chevron motifs picked into 5,000-year-old stones, the extraordinary concentration of passage tombs constructed on the gentle hills enclosed by the bend of the River Boyne, and the significance of the rising and setting sun in the lives and beliefs of these early communities.

Traditional tapestry weaving, the binary act of passing coloured weft threads by hand over and under a series of warp threads to gradually reveal an image, has remained largely unchanged through time. The process itself forms a tangible thread linking the modern world with that of ancient peoples.

For the builders of Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth and Fourknocks, the world they inhabited was separated from our own by five millennia. Yet through the shared experience of creativity, craftsmanship and observation of the natural world, connections can still be drawn across this vast span of time.

Knowth. The Heart | Tapestry Weaving by Uisce A. Jakubczyk

Uisce A. Jakubczyk

As a guide at Brú na Bóinne, Uisce A. Jakubczyk has developed a special connection with the monuments of Knowth and Newgrange. She is particularly drawn to the ornamented stones, which she feels possess a distinctive presence and individuality. To her, the stones are organic objects, shaped not only by nature but also by the many hands that selected, transported and decorated them thousands of years ago.

Jakubczyk finds that Neolithic art translates beautifully into contemporary textile work. She sees parallels between the process of weaving and the creation of megalithic art. Just as a tapestry is built through thousands of small actions, lifting warp threads and passing weft through them, the carvings on the stones were created through countless individual marks patiently picked into the surface.

She enjoys weaving with different types of paper, a material that retains a memory of its own and creates richly textured fabrics. Her tapestries change with shifting light and viewing angles, much like the carved stones at Knowth, where particular motifs become more visible at certain times of day or during different seasons of the year.