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Recent Posts
- Part 6 Cumulator 7 – just the rest of images taken by Jordan Hutchings – 7/7/2016
- Keith Sheppard, Reflections of Nebulae 2, Arts and Disability Forum Gallery, 03.08 – 08/09 2017
- Dougal McKenzie: A Dream and an Argument, 30 June – 8 October, 2017, the MAC, Belfast
- Bill Saunders: Side Steps These Ferried Measures Rise, 30 June – 24 September 2017, MAC, Belfast
- Fine Art at 2017 Annual Degree shows, University of Ulster Belfast, 2 – 10 June
- Diarmuid Delargy, Monotypes, 15 June- 28 July, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast
- Helen Kerr, Batik and Stitch, Oriel Gallery, Antrim, 1/5 – 30/6 2017 (and some others)
- Tony Hill, Selected Works 2017 – 1972, F E McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 14 April until June 4th, 2017
- Paddy McCann: Eyes to the Wind, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast, 11 May – 10 June 2017
- Sharon Kelly at ArtisAnn Gallery Belfast, May 4-27 2017
- Stuart Calvin, Greater than I, May 4 – 18 2017, GTG Belfast
- Unafraid Red, April 6 – May 4, 2017, QSS Belfast
- Bbeyond Symposium Belfast April 3-8 2017
- Robert Ellis: Proverbs, 3/3 – 15/4 2017 at Belfast Exposed
- ADRIAN O’CONNELL: INTERSTICE, March 2017, Engine Room Gallery, Belfast
- Michael Hanna: Predictable Contact, Naughton Gallery Belfast, 16.02.17 – 26.03.17
- David Turner: A Series of Small Explosions,QSS Gallery Belfast, 23-25
- BOSTON,02/02/17 – 11/0317 Belfast. Golden Thread Gallery
- LISA GINGLES, 2 February – 3 March 2017, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast
- Catherine Davison, A Kaleidoscope of Colour, QSS, Belfast, 19 -21 January 2017
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Category Archives: essay
Part 6 Cumulator 7 – just the rest of images taken by Jordan Hutchings – 7/7/2016
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Dougal McKenzie: A Dream and an Argument, 30 June – 8 October, 2017, the MAC, Belfast
Whatever subject, motif, intention, McKenzie leans towards being a history painter born in Scotland, a root which he intensely identifies with as if it were palpably one living organism akin to a family. With few exceptions, McKenzie frames and … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Edinburgh, M. Chagall, Mit Jai Inn, Sainte-Beauve, Vasari, Walter Scott
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Bill Saunders: Side Steps These Ferried Measures Rise, 30 June – 24 September 2017, MAC, Belfast
Bill Saunders named the sculptural assemblage on the floor “…pool (floor and counting). From this angle it looks like a headless protective clothing of an explorer placed here by a tide that got muddled in arranging the other end. … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Arte Povera, David Smith, drawings, Graz Kunsthaus Museum, installation, Modernism, rubbings, sculpture, W. Benjamin
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Fine Art at 2017 Annual Degree shows, University of Ulster Belfast, 2 – 10 June
Fiftysix pages of a newsprint 36 x 29 cm ( a size of not the smallest of canvas) carries the basic administrative information about courses and a campus map. BUT not the layout of the placement. Each cohort of students … Continue reading
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Tagged A.Kiefer, Charlie Scott, Gruenewald, Jan Dibbets, painting, photography, porcelain, R Long, Sam Welsh, Wabi-Sabi, Zara Lyness
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Diarmuid Delargy, Monotypes, 15 June- 28 July, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast
The cubist painter Andre Lhote (1885 -1962) jealously chastised Emil Filla (1882 – 1953) for being “plus Picassian que Picasso lui même” – a memory of which surfaced when I saw one particularly superb monotype at the current … Continue reading
Tony Hill, Selected Works 2017 – 1972, F E McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 14 April until June 4th, 2017
The current psychology view seems to insist that we have two attention systems: one wondering over and around the perceivable is a friendly support for wandering around this exhibition to get a better focus. The other snaps our focus to … Continue reading
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Paddy McCann: Eyes to the Wind, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast, 11 May – 10 June 2017
A face, neck and shoulder of a three quarter “portrait” , positioned between two calm and cold walls, addresses us over a mad riot of exploding red, yellow, and other hues. The blue above the head suggests an open space … Continue reading
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Tagged appropriation, painting, responsiveness, W.J.T. Mitchell, watercolour
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Sharon Kelly at ArtisAnn Gallery Belfast, May 4-27 2017
Sharon Kelly watercolours with graphite form a half of two persons exhibition titled Dissolving into ambiguity with Lenka Davidikova( b 1980, Dolny Kubin, Slovak Republic). Both graduated from the University of Ulster – 26 years apart. I have written about Kelly’s … Continue reading
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Tagged Albrecht Duerer, ArtisAnn gallery, August Rodin, Bertrand Russell, dance, drawing, Giordano Bruno, graphite, grief, Sharon Kelly, watercolour
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Stuart Calvin, Greater than I, May 4 – 18 2017, GTG Belfast
Stuart Calvin wrote to me: “The process for creating the plaster forms involves pouring the plaster directly onto a flat smooth surface. Before the plaster fully sets, I shape them until they are slightly domed. … Continue reading
Bbeyond Symposium Belfast April 3-8 2017
“I beg you….let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven.” (Giordano Bruno,1548 -1600)
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Tagged Chumpon Apisuk, Giordano Bruno, Guy Sioul Durand, Lucy Cotter, Nicholas de Cusa
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Robert Ellis: Proverbs, 3/3 – 15/4 2017 at Belfast Exposed
The gallery handout makes astonishing statement calling this small exhibition upstairs ” “an ongoing body of work using photographic images and audio recordings that engage with the contemporary landscape of Uganda while exploring its layers of memory.” Whose layers of … Continue reading
Michael Hanna: Predictable Contact, Naughton Gallery Belfast, 16.02.17 – 26.03.17
The installation is made up of four TV monitors and a continuous projection on the wall. The colours and sounds of Predictable Contact, while allowing me the freedom to play
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Charles Baudelaire, James Gibson, Richard Gregory, U.G.Neisser, visual perception
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David Turner: A Series of Small Explosions,QSS Gallery Belfast, 23-25
Mosaics? Tapestries? Embroidery? The look of Turner’s objects constructed from Lego Bricks or Hama Beads meanders from an association to toys, to rules of construction controlled by gravity or frames. The sizes vary from huge Megaton #1 and #2 to … Continue reading
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BOSTON,02/02/17 – 11/0317 Belfast. Golden Thread Gallery
From the University of Massachussetts via a dialogue at Scope NY, 2015, to the Project Space at the GTG in Belfast is a journey less startling than the choice of making Belfast a Sister City for Boston. Yet, in 2014 … Continue reading
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Tagged digital drawngs, Machine Knitted compositions, Mixed Media Collkage, video
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LISA GINGLES, 2 February – 3 March 2017, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast
ARTIST’S STATEMENT My work is influenced by many things; mythology, folk tales and invented stories, leaving their dark side laid bare. It is about my life, the lives of others, and sometimes the life of no one at … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged deterioration of paper, Gary Hume, J P Sartre, Phenomenology
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Catherine Davison, A Kaleidoscope of Colour, QSS, Belfast, 19 -21 January 2017
Queen Street Studios started a new tradition: Flash Show offering their ground floor rooms at 31-33 Bedford Street for a brief exhibitions – like a visit to a studio. Davison’s Kaleidoscope of Colour is the first of a planned series, … Continue reading
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Fenderesky Gallery,Belfast, on 13th January 2017
I went last week – Jamshid realised another of his reliably good displays. On the ground floor, in the cafe space, piano, bookshelves, tables and chairs hinted at his parisian models. Upstairs – it felt more like a piano nobile … Continue reading
Ciara Finnegan at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2016, August 4 – September 10
And yes, it has taken me this long to write this essay about it. Click on grubberguide to see the sketch for the main exhibit and the artist’s valuable notes. There were four items exhibited:
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Tagged Aesop, J B Priestley, Nativity, R Dahl, toy animals, video novella.
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Aisling O’Beirn at Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, 2016
Curated by J. Baker . the exhibition titled another day in futile battle against the 2nd law of thermodynamics included, maps, diagrams, installation, and video, all presented with meticulous care. Selection of gallery exposition and O’Beirn’s introduction is accessible … Continue reading
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Tagged Arte Povera; astronomy, installation, science, thermodynamics, video
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Moira McIver, Shadow Catcher, November 2016, Ards Art Centre, NI
As an invitation to a Shadow Catcher ( in my thought a rendez-vous with Mnemosyne) the artist states: In this exhibition in the Sunburst gallery in Ards Arts centre, I have used the historical photographic process called wet plate collodion. … Continue reading
Keith Wilson, Calendar, MAC, Belfast, 2016
The curators issued the following information: Keith Wilson: Calendar 12 Aug 2016 – 16 Oct 2016 VENUE: UPPER GALLERY ART For this major exhibition in our Upper Gallery, British artist Keith Wilson further develops his longstanding investigation into the cultural … Continue reading
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Liam Crichton: SLEEPER
Liam Crichton: SLEEPER 12 Aug 2016 – 9 Sep 2016 VENUE: SUNKEN GALLERY MAC,Belfast The curators, Hugh Mulholland and Eoin Dara, issued an accompanying text: We are pleased to be presenting the first institutional solo exhibition in the UK … Continue reading
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Part 5: CUMULATOR 7 at The Point, Groomsport, 7th July 2016/Addendum
Rainer Pagel has visited the site of the Cumulator 7 ten days later. He took photographs of the gilded stones and shells, his installation. High and low tides changed his arrangement. The sea made its own installation – with seaweed. … Continue reading
Part 3: Cumulator 7, 7th July, 2016, The Point, Groomsport, NI, UK (Rainer Pagel)
Rainer Pagel The following text in the Italic is verbatim Pagel’s text emailed to me after the performance, I placed Jordan Hutchings’s photographs when they relate to his words. My performance tried to make however small a comment on all … Continue reading
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Part 1:CUMULATOR 7 -0n 7th July 2016 at The Point, Groomsport, NI, UK (Twisselmann and Clarke)
On the of July 2016 seven performance artists worked for 7 hours at The Point, Bangor, Co Down: James King, Brian Patterson, Christoff Gillen, Rainer Pagel, Colm Clarke, Siobhan Mullen Wolf and Keike Twisselmann. I watched for slightly over an … Continue reading
Posted in email conversation, essay
Tagged Colm Clarke, Jordan Hutchings, Keike Twisselmann, painting, performance, sculpture, The Point
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Victories are shortlived – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 23.06.16 – 13.08.16
Milena Bonilla (b 1975, Bogota, Columbia) tracks a “no man land” between Germany and Czech Republic – a residuum of the Cold War between Soviet Union and the West. Where used to be an electric fence for almost half a … Continue reading
Shahar Marcus: King of Falafel, video 2016
To make a falafel in the space above our atmosphere/ stratosphere, erect a kiosk on the Moon to make it is a grotesque amusement. No wonder, it associates with the view on grotesque as rural amusement as recognised by William … Continue reading
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Tagged Amba, Falafel, grotesque, Petach Tikva art museum, Shahar Marcus
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Angelo Garoglio -ways of seeing
Allure of autonomy and self-respect in the presence of Michelangelo’s Pieta Rondanini (1555 – 1564, marble 195 cm H, in castello Storzesco, Milan) govern the light and angle 0f Garoglio’s meditative looking at it through a lens. Italy’s … Continue reading
Martin Boyle at GTG Belfast, 28.04 – 11.06 2016
The framed image was taking on my phone, which quickly led me to film the scene. I wanted to use the image to implicate further myself in the scene. The image was printed out Black & white and manipulated by … Continue reading
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Tagged appropriation, digital photography, digital prints, enigma, installation, text
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Lorraine Burrell at GTG, Belfast, May 2016
THESE DAYS ARE PERSISTENT AND CHANGEABLE is a title of an exhibition of art by Lorraine Burrell and Martin Boyle, at the Golden Thread Gallery from 28.04 – 11.06 2016. What days are not that? Yours? Mine? Whatever answer is … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged abstraction, Arcimboldo, catharsis, Conceptual art, hyperrealism, mimesis
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Open work ? Belfast (March/April 2016)
Three concurrent exhibitions invite that question. Marie Hanlon at Fendersky, Desire Line at Golden Thread Gallery and In-Stream at the two galleries, Ulster University and QSS. Fenderesky Gallery and cafe is a new place with a four decades of history … Continue reading
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Tagged Andrew Glenn, Anthony Kelly, Charles Baudelaire, correspondences, David Stalling, Desire Line, drawing, Fenderesky gallery, Finding Equilibrium, Geraldine Boyle, Golden Therad Gallery, In-Stream, John Hutchings, Julie Lovett, Kevin Miller, Majella Clancy, Marie Hanlon, painting, QSS gallery, Rowan Sexton, Univeristy of Ulster Gallery
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Difficult art (April 2016)
Helen O’Leary has included the following as a part of the genesis of The Shelf Life of Facts (2016, MAC Belfast): “I ended up in Paris and found myself walking to the Museum of War a lot, and I’d look … Continue reading
Peter FitzGerald, 2016, http://connemara.website
These photographs are deliberately rotated 90°. We see into landscapes. We are less inclined to see the visual structure of what is before us. But we can make things strange in order to see differently – through rotation, for example. Then we see … Continue reading
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Tagged B Brecht, Connemara, Giotto di Bondone, Jan Dibbet, photography, right angle, V.Shklovsky, visual thinking
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Colin Darke at Suki Tea 2015 Art prize at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 25th February -26th March 2016
The Snow-White Rose of Paradise (2015, 170 x 230 cm) is made with partly empty toothpaste tubes with pennies and magnets attached. A part of the content has been squeezed out before the assembly of the relief assemblage, with almost … Continue reading
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Tagged coins, Colin Darke, ice axe, Karl Gerstner, magnets, oikoumene, Peter Monaghan, Seneca, spiral, Suki Tea 2015 art prize, toothpaste, W Morris
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Bbeyond at Ulster Museum, Belfast, 12th March 2016
They called it INTER-BEING, durational performances. Here, on the steps, ascending, Dorothea Serror carries a silver head box, and, Linda Montano holds a silver bucket before descending and getting out of the building, to light a fire of sorts. … Continue reading
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Tagged Alastair MacLennan, Brian Connolly, Dominic Thorpe, Dorothea Serror, Jordan Hutchings, Linda Montano, Sandra Johnston
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Chris Wilson, Dwelling Place, The Oriel Gallery, Antrim Castle Gardens, 28 January – 5th March 2016
Belfast street map, standardised small houses (he made those as metal objects/ sculptures earlier) black abstraction – those are three stable characteristics of Wilson’s early work. The transformatory power of what is legible and what is erased forges a metamorphosis: … Continue reading
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Tagged abstraction, acrylic, Chris Wilson, conte, maps, Newfoundland, paintings
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GUEST – at the Arts and Disability Forum gallery, Belfast, January 5 , 2016 –
Chris Ledger, CEO of the ADF in Belfast invited Hugh Mulholland, the senior curator at Metropolitan Art Centre, to curate a small exhibition titled GUEST, of art “…produced via these grants – over many years and in all art … Continue reading
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Tagged Anne Quail, Chris Ledger, Fergus Jordan, Hugh Mulholland, Julie McGowan, Maurice Orr, Mongolia, Peru, Shiro Masuyama, Sinead O'Donnel, Stuart Calvin
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GROUPSHOW, Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, January 14 – February 13, 2016
I start with Anselm Kiefer here, because I experienced it too: “”Art is difficult,” says the 66-year-old firmly. “It’s not entertainment. There are only a few people who can say something about art – it’s very restricted. When I see … Continue reading
SHE DEVIL
SHE DEVIL in BELFAST, Golden Thread Gallery, 17/12/2015 – 6/2/2016 I have not heard of the Italian architect who created the SHE DEVIL project. On her website (www.studiostefaniamiscetti.com) she offers impressive list of artists who responded to her invitation. It … Continue reading
Posted in article, essay, review
Tagged Belfast, Daphne Wright, Frances Hegarty, Golden Thread Gallery, Isobel Nolan, Jeanne Susplugas, Jumana Manna and Sille Storihle, Kate Gilmore, Kelly Dobson, Klara Liden, Luana Perilli, Malak Helmy, Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Peter Richards, Rona Yefman, She Devil, Sinead O'Donnell, Stefania Miscetti, Tamara Moyzes, Tanja Schlander, video, Vivienne Dick
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Shiro Masuyama, Self-Sufficient Life, Millennium Court Art Centre, Portadown October 2015
Foregrounding Three still photographs and a video of each of three of his more recent projects illustrate the artist’s commitment to ideas that are both activating changes in the art system, and reflecting deeply felt concerns about the … Continue reading
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Tagged animals, B Croce, Japanese aesthetics, knitting, Mongolia, Peru, skills, Sligo, weaving. shearing
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Jordan Hutchings, Body of Work, GTG, Belfast, 4-25 June 2015
Curated by the artist Mary Morgan, the exhibition as a whole induced an aesthetic experience by the chosen rhythmical display. I read a wall like a sheet music – imagined intonating it in a- minor after repeating five times the … Continue reading
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Tagged Al MacLennan, Bbeyond, Caroline McCusker, Caroline Pugh, Christoff Gillen, Ciara McKeon, Claudia Kappenberg, Felipe Faundec Fuentes, Fergus Byrne, James King, Jennifer Hanley, Jordan Hutchings, Julie Fiala, Karine Talec, Keike Twisselmann, Kurt Johannessen, Laura Graham, mary morgan, Olivia Hassett, Pavana Reid, Performance Art, photography, Sandra Corrigan Breathnach, Sandra Johnston
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Untitled -related to
The distinction between intentional object and natural object could appear as a reference to a specific act as constitutive of its mode of being, i.e. intentional object is man made. However, artist’s intention is not like a decision, it is … Continue reading
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Tagged A. Ghenie, Altamira, Hubert Fichte. Kader Attia, J.Mukarovsky, M.Heizer, O. Hostinsky, R Motherwell, S.J.Gould, T Hill, V Shklovskij
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paintfor.me and a cauliflower
My aim in What Do Pictures Want? is thus not to project personhood onto pictures, but to engage with what I call “the lives and loves” of images. (W.J.T Mitchell) That both “projection of personhood” and “engagement with the image”” … Continue reading
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Tagged Conceptual art, Duncan Ross, Elena Duff, Pablo Picasso, Performance Art, Peter FitzGerald, Quido Reni, Rembrandt, V Stwosz, Willem Kalf
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HELEN G BLAKE at Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast, 16 April – 16 May 2015
At the time of writing, this exhibition of fourteen small paintings has not been documented on her website (www.helengblake.com). Their sizes around A 4 or a one fifth bigger forge a call for privacy, not unlike covers or title pages … Continue reading
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Tagged Domenico Ghirlandaio, Doric order, Ellen Altfest, Roman atrium house, Sacra Conversazione
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JORDAN HUTCHINGS
A year has passed between the first an the last of Hutchings’s images. Although they protect their individual identity they are peacefully similar, in that they trap light into a kind of trinity: light is the subject, medium and … Continue reading
24 at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, December 2014
The Project Space is a small space on the left of the entrance inside the Golden Thread Gallery. It is irreverently free of “having-to-do” anything , and equally it is free to do anything. I think the paradox is a … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexander Calder, Brian J Morrison, Charlotte Bosanquet, Ciara Finnegan, Colin McGooki, Duncan Ross, Geoff Molyneux, Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, Hazel Neill, installation, Leo Devlin, Mick Cullen, mobiles, painting, prints, Robert Peters, Sarah McAvera, Stuart Calvin, video
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BEN CRAIG, All or Nothing, Platform Arts, Belfast, 6 -26 November, 2014
There were three artists taking part in the exhibition curated by the Platform Arts: Ben Craig, Lucas Dillon and Paul Quast. The following is not a review of the exhibition, rather a brief meditation on some of the ideas raised … Continue reading
