6
Visual Artists' News Sheet | May – June 2021
Exhibition Roundup
Dublin
Belfast
Irish Film Institute @ Home Treasa O’Brien’s new film, Town of Strangers, is available for home viewing exclusively on IFI@ Home. As stated on the IFI website: “A stranger arrives to a rural village and calls for auditions asking people to tell her ‘dreams, lies, memories and gossip’. Together, they go on a cinematic journey to explore their waking and dreaming lives. Featuring a cast of migrant workers, hippies, Travellers, blow-ins and newly arrived refugees, we are ushered into the private worlds of people living between two cultures, sharing their desires of longing and belonging.”
Kevin Kavanagh Kathy Tynan’s online exhibition, ‘Fresh Ruins’, was hosted by the Kevin Kavanagh gallery from 6 April to 19 April. Kathy’s paintings seek to document her day-to-day life, her thoughts, and provide windows into the little moments of everyday life. According to the press release: “In ‘Fresh Ruins’ we can see how Kathy has incorporated moments, coveted through paint to consider changes in the local urban environment alongside representations of various stages and experiences of life; friendship, companionship, maternal love, romantic love and solitude.”
ArtisAnn Gallery ArtisAnn Gallery, Belfast, displayed the new exhibition, ‘Creative Undoing’, by Carol Graham RUA, online from 31 March to 1 May. Carol Graham is a well-established and critically acclaimed artist whose work is held in many important collections. This includes the permanent collections of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Museum. Her work is held in private collections, public institutions, businesses and galleries across the UK, Ireland, USA, South Africa and Australia. Carol served as President of the RUA from 2003-2006.
Belfast Exposed Belfast Exposed presented ‘Street View: Matthew Finn’ which featured four projects – Mother, Uncle, Wife and Son – by artist Matthew Finn. Finn uses the people and events directly surrounding his life as visual references for projects that sometimes take years to realise. On display from 8 March to 17 April, ‘Street View’ provided a multimedia exhibition experience to increase the accessibility and visibility of photography on the streets of Belfast. ‘Street View’ was a large digital window display in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter.
Olivier Cornet Gallery Eoin Mac Lochlainn presents his solo exhibition, ‘Is glas iad na Cnoic’, at the Olivier Cornet Gallery from 18 April to 19 May, via the gallery’s 3D Virtual Space. In the words of the artist: “This series of multi-faceted paintings celebrates the everyday wonders of the living planet although feelings of anxiety, grief and loneliness are never far from the surface. The title of the series comes from the Irish proverb: the faraway hills are green, a reminder that what we have is already enough.” The exhibition will available by appointment at the gallery when lockdown level 5 measures are lifted.
Projects Arts Centre On Wednesday 31 March, Project Arts Centre launched the ‘QUEER-IN-PROGRESS. TIMELINE: ONLINE ARCHIVE’, an ongoing project exploring expanded Irish LGBTQ histories. During the online event, hosted with GCN Magazine, they highlighted some of the features of the timeline and introduced their open call, inviting audiences to write their own histories into the timeline. Guests included writer, actor and activist Noelle Brown; film editor and director Cara Holmes; GCN’s Lisa Connell and others. The event was broadcast live on GCN’s Facebook, YouTube channel and is available to watch on Project’s Website.
Golden Thread Gallery From 24 April to 29 May, Sol Archer’s film exhibition and sculptural installation, ‘not only the earth we share’, is on display online at the Golden Thread Gallery. From the gallery: “The films in ‘not only the earth we share’, which emerged from the artist-in-residence project, are informed by the social and creative practices of this community, and how storytelling, identity and community can result from, and act as agents of, neighbourhood resistance. In Sailortown, grassroots activism and regeneration take place alongside the expansion of the harbour estate and large scale, top-down urban planning and development.”
Liminal [space] Belfast Developed in association with 9ft in Common and the Imagine! Belfast Festival, ‘Limin-alley’ presented 12 local artists and designers who responded to specific sites identified from an emergent Belfast Alley Map of the back-alleys across south (Ormeau) and east (Belmont) Belfast. The exhibition ran from 25 to 28 March. Festival audiences were encouraged to seek out these showcases individually via an online map, exploring and engaging with these underused spaces in the city while doing so. It was accompanied by an online discussion led by project partners Amberlea Neely, Aisling Rusk and Meadhbh McIlgorm.
The LAB Gallery The LAB Gallery presented ‘A Consideration of All Bodies’, a group exhibition of work by Declan Byrne, Philip Kenny, Paul Moore, Hugh O’Donnell and Áine O’Hara, from 5 March to 5 May. All the artists and the curator have disabilities. The exhibition was installed in the gallery and was available to view from the street. It also had an online programme of events and discussions. The works contemplate disabled people’s bodies and their ways of navigating a world designed for nondisabled bodies. The exhibition and events programme focus on how bodies are, are not, or could be supported.
Platform Arts Belfast-based artist John Macormac’s ‘Rule Driven’ was displayed online at Platform Arts. According to the press release, the exhibition is the “latest manifestation of an ongoing exploration of sonic and visual pattern, informed by mathematics, geometry and the natural world. Each component enacts a set of carefully formulated, self-determined rules, influenced greatly by instructions for works written by Sol LeWitt. Densely worked drawings of repeated forms echo those present in nature gathering inspiration from wide ranging sources.” The exhibition ran from 10 April to 1 May.
PS² Displayed online at PS2 from 22 March to 10 April, ‘Terra Infirma’ began as an Instagram takeover by Belfast-based artists Aisling O’Beirn and Dougal McKenzie during the first lockdown phase in May 2020. Aisling posted images of her recent pencil drawings, while Dougal responded with sketches on WhatsApp of the same view through a hedge on his daily walks. The project showed the ongoing dialogue about their personal take on drawing and presented the original drawings and the WhatsApp drawings.
ifihome.ie
oliviercornetgallery.com
Solomon Fine Art Solomon Fine Art hosted its annual Spring Group Exhibition this year as an online experience. On display from 4 February to 17 April, this extensive and varied exhibition offered a vibrant mix of painting, sculpture and print to view in the comfort of one’s own home. The exhibition featured work from John Behan RHA, Margo Banks, Comhghall Casey, Clifford Collie, Tom Climent, Eamon Colman, Orla de Brí, Ana Duncan, Margaret Egan, Bridget Flinn, Stephanie Hess, Carol Hodder, Bernadette Madden, Frances Ryan and John Short. solomonfineart.ie
kevinkavanagh.ie
projectartscentre.ie
dublincityartsoffice.ie
Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Ailltreacha - Atlantic Cliffs, 2021, watercolour on Fabriano paper, 87x58cm, image courtesy the artist and the Oliver Cornet Gallery.
artisann.org
goldenthreadgallery.co.uk
belfastexposed.org
liminalspacebelfast.com
platformartsbelfast.com
Sol Archer, not only the earth we share, 2021, video still; image courtesy of the artist.
pssquared.org
