The Irish non-profit SumGood is back and raising the bar with its exciting Annual Contemporary Art Auction, taking place on April 9th 2025 in The Copperhouse Gallery, off Dublin’s Camden St.
The auction will feature a live auctioneer, tunes, pizza, beer, wine, and over 100 artworks on show and up for grabs! SumGood provides in-house bids as well as real time bidding via the online platform Invaluable.com in order to raise funds for their slick new chef training programme – The KickStart Kitchen.
SumGood wil be splitting the profits with the artists, while also raising funds to run the KickStart Kitchen pilot. As Founder Andy Sweeney says: “We want to create the ultimate win-win-win fundraiser – the artist makes a few quid, the org raises essential funds, and the donor gets to walk away with an incredible piece of art.”
The enterprising Mr. Sweeney – who also founded The SCOOP Foundation with his brother Calvin James Sweeney many moons ago, the force behind the Syrias Vibes campaign – has created a new org – SumGood – which is keeping the same ethos alive – running socially driven events including art auctions.
SumGood’s inaugural programme, The KickStart Kitchen, aims to change the lives of those facing a barrier to employment, by offering free professional chef training and recruitment services to anyone who needs a second chance, or who simply want to kick start their career in a kitchen but are coming up against red tape or a lack of qualifications. The programme aims to help those in Direct Provision, those who left school early, those exiting homelessness services, ex-offenders etc, and the money raised from this endeavour will help to further grow and support this programme.
The auction will be held on Wednesday the 9th of April in the The CopperHouse Gallery. A two hour exhibition/drinks reception (with Dublin Pizza Company pizza, Whiplash Pale Ales and vibes/tunes) will start at 5pm. The Live Auction will then commence at 7pm sharp with top auctioneer and SumGood co-founder George Gerard Mealy on the rostrum. He really puts on a great show so come down even just to see this!
The auction will also feature online bidding for those who can’t make the event through Invaluable.com. There will be over 100 artists involved, including some of Ireland’s favourite artists, such as:
Solus, Atmos, Eamon Colman, Margo Banks, David Booth, Corrina Earlie, Lola Donoghue, Leo Boyd, Adrian+Shane, Morgan, Niall Cullen, Anna Matykiewicz, Nick Munier, Neil Dunne,Katarzyna Gajewska, Kevin Lowery, Conor Nolan, Gavin O’Brien, Mick Minogue, Padraig McCaul, Miriam Fitzgerald Juskova, Kathrine Geoghegan, Sarah Flynn, Kata Kukla, Esko, Adrienne M. Finnerty, John O’Donnell, Cormac O’Leary, Neil J. Smith, Samuel Walsh, Sketchy and many, many more incredible artists.
Check out Sumgood.org for more info, including all the artworks, event details, how to sign up for online bidding, and of course info on who SumGood are and their plans to create a unique non-profit wanting to help anyone and everyone across our island.
Words: Brendan White
Images:
David Booth, Maho
Adrian+Shane, Untitled
Sketchy, The Fruit Market
For more details, visit SumGood.org
