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Visual Artists’ News Sheet | July – August 2021
Exhibition Roundup
Dublin
Belfast
A4 Sounds Gallery ‘Queer Utopia’ by Mariette Feeney was on display online and in-person at A4 Sounds Gallery from 13 to 30 May. As stated by the gallery: “‘Queer Utopia’ is a collaborative sculptural and digital vision of a queer future: a pink, joyful, playful space created in response to a series of discussions between the artist and other queer people… Our queer utopia is a place of freedom, of righteous anger, a place full to the very brim with loving and radical care for our comrades.”
Dlr LexIcon The group show ‘Tangled’ is on display at the Municipal Gallery, dlr LexIcon, until 18 July. The exhibition was created by Michael Fortune in collaboration with Southside Travellers Action Group. From the gallery: “The exhibition includes both new and recent work from the artists’ studios. The range of work varies from folkloric themed drawings by Alice Maher to intimated ethnographic styled images of Traveller hair and hairstyles as seen in the photographs by Breda Mayock.”
ArtisAnn Gallery Margaret Arthur RUA’s new collection of work ‘Tides of Life’ was on display in the gallery and online from 2 to 26 June. From the gallery: “This exhibition is inspired by the ever-changing light and colour of the coastlines and tides of Counties Donegal and Down… [Margaret Arthur] exhibits widely in Ireland, the UK, and throughout Europe, and in the USA, where she lived and worked for a year, holding a solo exhibition at The Russell Rotunda, a Senate building in Washington DC.”
a4sounds.org
libraries.dlrcoco.ie
artisann.org
Pallas Projects/Studios John Conway’s ‘Object Im/permanence’ was on display at Pallas Projects/Studios from 21 May to 5 June. From the gallery: “John’s verbal description of the exhibition space evokes a Church-like quality; I imagine a quiet, reverent space that has been designed to make you take a moment, to think. In my mind, the gallery is large and filled with darkness that your eyes adjust to as you walk in. The luminous icons which intermittently fill with light are dazzling, appearing as if by magic and sizzling words into your eyes.”
Temple Bar Gallery & Studios Viewable online and in-person until 10 July, ‘Agitation Co-op’ features artists Michele Horrigan, Catriona Leahy, Laurie Robins, Libita Sibungu. From the gallery: “’Agitation Co-op’ is an exhibition that investigates the subject of landscape from a range of vantage points; not only social and political ideologies but also, mapping and topography… It is accompanied by an online screening programme highlighting films by Forensic Architecture, Melanie Smith, and Eva Richardson McCrea, Frank Sweeney and the Dublin Dockworkers Preservation Society.”
Golden Thread Gallery Paul Moore’s solo exhibition, ‘Fionnghlas’, was on display from 25 to 30 May in the Project Space at Golden Thread Gallery. From the gallery: “Within the exhibition, Moore looks to these experiences almost meditatively, creating a cathartic release during difficult times. This continuing struggle with the present and the search for both extreme reality and out of body experience marks a change in Moore’s practice towards a more contemplative question about how we as a society are equipped to deal with adversity.”
pallasprojects.org
templebargallery.com
goldenthreadgallery.co.uk
The Complex Tanad Aaron and Mark Swords collaborative project ‘Portico’ was shown at The Complex from 7 to 28 May. An online programme of scheduled events coincided with the exhibition, to communicate the exhibition to digital audiences. This featured a textual exchange of ideas between the artists – which was digitalised to create an interactive experience and punctuated with links to research material and imagery – a video walk-through and audio description of the exhibition, musical performances/practices, and audio essays.
The Library Project The Library Project and Basic Space Dublin exhibited the group show ‘On Belonging’ at The Library Project from 3 to 27 June. This collaborative group exhibition was guest curated by Diana Bamimeke and featured work by Bassam Al-Sabah, Moran Been-noon, Maïa Nunes, Osaro, Oscar Fouz Lopez, and Salvatore of Lucan. From the gallery: “Each of the exhibiting artists have been invited to respond not only to the state of belonging – how it is conceived and made physical – but conversely, to not-belonging, and the outcomes of both in the modern world.”
Naughton Gallery The group show ‘Sorry, Neither’ continues until 11 July. From the gallery: “Taking its title from Star Trek’s Lieutenant Nyota Uhura’s response to being referred to as a ‘fair maiden’, ‘Sorry, Neither’ is an exploration of Afrofuturism and Black futurity within contemporary art and pop culture… The term ‘Afrofuturism’ refers to a cultural movement that uses the frame of science fiction and fantasy to reimagine the history of the African diaspora and to invoke a vision of a technically-advanced and generally hopeful future in which Black people thrive.”
PS² Gary Shaw’s ‘GYRE 2’ was on display at PS2 from 27 May to 12 June. Shaw exhibited three work groups of his drawing output: Drawings of circles, Sketches of passers-by and kinetic animations. From the gallery: “Gyre is a term mostly used in oceanography and means a circular or spiral path, a motion or large current… At first glance the drawings look calming and meditative like a mandorla, but then reveal a nervous energy, where the lines turn to sparks in a fire wheel.”
naughtongallery.org
pssquared.org
thecomplex.ie
basicspace.ie
John Conway, ‘Object Im/permanence’, 2021, installation view; image courtesy the artist and Pallas Projects/Studios.
Belfast Photo Festival Belfast Photo Festival took place from 3 to 30 June this year with the theme of ‘Future(s)’. From the festival: “Taking ‘Future(s)’ as its theme, this year’s festival tackles issues as diverse as climate change, migration, the advancement of technology, government surveillance and the power of protest, to explore how the future is shaped by our actions in the present. Rather than presenting a singular vision of what this future might be or look like, the festival instead offers up a speculative, imaginative glimpse into… what might lie ahead.” belfastphotofestival.com
MAC Belfast Three exhibitions are showing at The MAC until 8 August. Dutch filmmaker Jaap Pieters’s Super 8mm film medley, ‘The Eye of Amsterdam’, is on display in The MAC’s Sunken Gallery, shown on three showreels, rotating throughout the duration. Presented in the Tall Gallery is the first institutional exhibition of artist Maya Balcioglu, whose works are “neither figurative nor abstract but in an intermediary condition.” The Upper Gallery hosts the first UK exhibition of New York-based painter, Ambera Wellmann, whose works “embody processes of erasure and revision, engaging with the potential of chance, vulnerability, and failure.” themaclive.com
Paul Moore, Fionnghlas, image courtesy the artist and Golden Thread Gallery.
