As the TCU football team prepares to kick off the 2026 season in Ireland against the University of North Carolina in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic, School of Art associate professor Adam Fung recently made his own appearance in Ireland, presenting a solo exhibition in the Emerald Isle.  

“Patina” showcased Fung’s oil paintings on copper panels at the Allihies Copper Mine Museum Gallery, a site rooted in Ireland’s mining history. The exhibition explored the state of the planet amid significant climate shifts, continuing Fung’s commitment to examining environmental change through contemporary art.  

“I pursued this opportunity after chatting with some artists in September 2024 while I was in Ireland for a four-person show,” Fung said. “They suggested connecting with the Copper Mine Museum since I was painting on copper. My proposal was well-received by the museum’s curator, which has a gallery that showcases artwork.” 

Allihies was home to Europe’s most westerly copper mines, which witnessed firsthand the beginning of the Industrial Revolution that would forever change the area’s trajectory.  

“I conceived the show as a way to deepen my work’s connection to climate change and ideas of extraction – in this case, copper and metal,” Fung said. “I thought about the human toll, the miners – and by extension their families – that labored in these mines to extract the copper.”

For the fall 2025 exhibit, he created a series of skyscapes on copper panels that serve as stand-ins for what the miners might have seen when they re-emerged from a day’s work underground. Each cloudscape is grounded in the shimmer of a copper substrate and changes as the viewer interacts with the pieces.  

“I also thought of this copper I was using, conceptually, as possibly the same copper that was mined from this place in Ireland, recycled over the years, until I got my hands on it and eventually brought it back to Ireland,” Fung said. “The beauty of the work is also connected to the fact that often sites of extraction are in remote or beautiful places like mountains, coastlines or other delicate ecosystems.” 

Allihies is just that. Located in West Cork at the end of the Beara Peninsula, the village sits between a rocky mountain range and the rugged Atlantic coast. 

“My hope is that this leads to more exhibitions and research in Ireland and also other sites where direct connections between the work and materials can connect to place,” Fung said.