Emerging Artists Exhibition Launch

One of my favourite exhibitions is the annual ‘Emerging Artists’ showcase at ArtisAnn Gallery in East Belfast. Each year, the gallery’s owners, Ann McVeigh and Ken Bartley, handpick young talent who have recently graduated from the School of Art at Ulster University and provide them with a platform to host their first professional group show.

This year’s showcase featured a selection of works from this year’s emerging talent: Lauren Reynolds, Adam Skinner, and Irene Sweeney

Ken Bartley, said: “The ArtisAnn Gallery believes in offering encouragement to young and emerging artists and is confident that these are stars of the future. The artwork produced by these newcomers is remarkable both for its technical ability and breadth of new ideas. This is a very varied show, with two common linkages: all are recent graduates and all are of the highest quality, with every indication that they will be ‘names’ of the future.”

Each of the works on display is unique and original, from Lauren Reynolds’ figurative paintings which focus on an archive of old family photographs, to Irene Sweeney’s exploration of fungi and its potential to be implemented in the healing of trauma. The collection that really captured my imagination was Adam Skinner’s Ephermerality. ‘Dance’, in particular, absolutely mesmerised me. The fractured use of colour and abstract presentation is truly striking and for me very much captured the journey of an object and the transformation that occurs as it is viewed by an observer.

With so many financial cuts to the arts sector, Ann and Ken should be applauded for their unwavering dedication to investing in the future of the arts. This exhibition clearly showcases just how talented our future artists have the potential to be when given opportunities and platforms to share their vision and talent.

The exhibition’s opened on 7th September and ran until 1st October.