KAVA

Kinvara Area Visual Arts

KAVA is a community arts group based in Kinvara and open to all to join. Our aim is: To promote and support the visual arts and the artist and to embrace creativity in the Kinvara area of Co. Galway.

Most of our members are either full-time or part-time artists who live and work in the area. At present KAVA has more than 60 members, representing a wide range of disciplines including: painters; printmakers; sculptors; ceramicists; glass workers; photographers; and graphic designers. We also have members who are not practising artists but join in order to support the aims of the group.

Securing the use of the old Kinvara Courthouse in 2015 as a community arts centre and artist-run gallery has given the group a fantastic new lease of life as we now have a dedicated space for holding art exhibitions, running workshops, showing films, and hosting artists’ presentations. Some artists in the area have been aspiring towards this for many years.

KAVA’s ethos is to work together to make art and art-making accessible to the whole community regardless of age, ability/disability, previous art knowledge or experience. We want the courthouse to be a place that everyone feels welcome to come into. We also aim to break down the isolation that many artists feel by encouraging networking amongst all of our members.

The courthouse is available for hire by other community groups whose aims are in line with our own. We have been able to host story-telling groups, small plays, life-drawing, seminars and workshops among many other things.