WAKE III
Elvis Beetham, Sam Heaton and Ian Jermyn
Expanded cinema and live music by Departures
Location: Buoys & Gulls, Bundoran, part of the Saltwater Festival 2026 art trail, 24 September – 4 October 2026
Opening night: Saturday 26 September, 6:00-8:00pm
Admission: Free
About the Exhibition
WAKE III arrives at Buoys & Gulls as part of the Saltwater Festival 2026 art trail, opening this year's programme of art events. The three artists showing here, Elvis Beetham, Ian Jermyn and Sam Heaton, work from deep inside the surf culture of Ireland's northwest, as shapers and makers of that culture rather than consumers of it. The boards, fins and work on show sit deliberately away from the mainstream of contemporary surfing, in the shapes, fin designs and artwork alike: experimental forms built at the edges of what a board or fin can be, rather than safe, flattering shapes designed to suit everyone.
The sea runs through the work not as subject but as condition, a shifting field that resists fixity while structuring rhythm, labour and form. Across surfboard, fin and object, materials are reconfigured through adaptation, pressure and repeated iteration, treating instability as something generative rather than something to correct for.
Ian Jermyn opens WAKE III, introducing the artists and the night ahead.
Opening night
The evening opens with a screening of the film WAKE, an expanded cinema work combining documentary material reworked through live processing. Sligo experimental trio Departures then play two live sets either side of a break, with Ian Jermyn responding to the music live with an analog liquid light show, projected over and around the band.
Formed in County Sligo in 2024, Departures favour curiosity over convention. Their live performances are fluid and improvised, built from texture, rhythm, space and whatever happens in the moment. A shared obsession with experimental electronic music is paired with sampling and visuals to build atmospheric rhythm and pulse.
Jan Steiner: synthesizer, keyboards
Paul Curly: drums and percussion
Ken Gunning: guitar, electronics, sampling
Instagram: @departures_music_strandhill
Detail of Sam Heaton's fins on display at Buoys and Gulls for WAKE III.
Ken Gunning of Departures working the samples live on opening night at Buoys and Gulls, viewed through Organic Devolution's analog liquid light setup.
Artists
Elvis Beetham
Beetham's practice operates at the intersection of surfing and object-making, grown from a sustained engagement with surfboard modification since 2009. His work reconfigures functional forms through adaptation, disruption and reuse, testing how far an object can exceed its intended function.
Instagram: @Booglerize
Sam Heaton
Heaton trained in fine art painting before turning to surfboard fin design, constructing pieces from fibreglass, resin, carbon and pigment. He uses carbon to isolate flex in specific areas, treating each fin as a conversation between structure, flex and flow, and drawing on principles of biomimicry.
Instagram: @FinFlex
Ian Jermyn
Based in Sligo, Jermyn's practice is shaped by coastal environments, a background in marine science, and repeated movement between Australia and Ireland. His materially layered works, built from repurposed materials, foreground transformation, permeability and drift.
Installation view, WAKE III, Buoys & Gulls, Bundoran, 2026
The work on show
If you'd like more information about a specific work, or to enquire about a purchase, use out contact page or email info@sceniusgallery.com with the artist's name and a description or photo of the piece, and we'll get back to you.
Curation
Curated by Marita O'Hanlon and Ian Jermyn
Film: Ian Jermyn
Live music: Departures
Extruded polystyrene foam, epoxy resin, e-glass.
Elvis Beetham.
See more: @booglerize