Category Archives: essay

Art of the print….

Posted on October 10, 2017 by

  The Art of the print.   The  title of my musing about print borrows the name from the first of the two exhibitions celebrating 40 years of Belfast Print Workshop.    Installed by Fenderesky Gallery ( Aug 3rd – … Continue reading →

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Graham Gingles: Boxes and Drawings, Fenderesky Gallery Belfast, 7th Sept – 7th October 2017

Posted on October 1, 2017 by

Boxes in the upstairs gallery – and few impressive drawings.  I like reading drawings – they tell what a final work of art hides. Note – I do not think of it as finished, just as of final version stopped … Continue reading →

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Helen Blake, David Crone, Tony Hill: Works on paper, Fenderesky Gallery I, Belfast, Sept 7 – Oct 7, 2017

Posted on September 29, 2017 by

Works on paper – what does it mean to you? It is a specific art speak  born out of undisciplined open ended dionysian intoxication with multitude of materials an artist can use to make visual art on the ubiquitous paper. … Continue reading →

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ALISTAIR WILSON: Signs and ciphers, GTG Belfast, 3 August – 19th September 2017

Posted on September 22, 2017 by

I open up with a paraphrase of  recent research: Like so many artworks, the brain is largely an object of mystery. One secret yet to be discovered is how the fragile folds of matter locked inside our skulls can not … Continue reading →

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Unafraid Yellow (August 4 -31) and Unafraid Blue (September 8-28) at QSS, Belfast, 2017

Posted on September 20, 2017 by

A variant of these  toy  was soldiers exhibited, not so lushly yellow,  spiralled around a column supporting the gallery ceiling could have been  easily overlooked. In a spirit of Barnett Newman’s aesthetic discourse my first image here represents both the … Continue reading →

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CAPTURED: Rich, Rugged and Fresh, Goose Lane Gallery, Belfast, 7th – 23rd September 2017

Posted on September 11, 2017 by

My first visit to this small gallery behind the Tivoli Barber’s  shop in North Street happened courtesy  the painter Gary Shaw.   Until this encounter,  I failed  to register an art group  Belfast Bankers, a name inspired by  the group … Continue reading →

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Part 6 Cumulator 7 – just the rest of images taken by Jordan Hutchings – 7/7/2016

Posted on August 8, 2017 by

         

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Dougal McKenzie: A Dream and an Argument, 30 June – 8 October, 2017, the MAC, Belfast

Posted on August 6, 2017 by

  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 →

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Bill Saunders: Side Steps These Ferried Measures Rise, 30 June – 24 September 2017, MAC, Belfast

Posted on July 18, 2017 by

  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 →

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Fine Art at 2017 Annual Degree shows, University of Ulster Belfast, 2 – 10 June

Posted on July 15, 2017 by

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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Diarmuid Delargy, Monotypes, 15 June- 28 July, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast

Posted on June 23, 2017 by

  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 →

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Helen Kerr, Batik and Stitch, Oriel Gallery, Antrim, 1/5 – 30/6 2017 (and some others)

Posted on June 13, 2017 by
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Tony Hill, Selected Works 2017 – 1972, F E McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, 14 April until June 4th, 2017

Posted on May 22, 2017 by

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

Posted on May 19, 2017 by

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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Sharon Kelly at ArtisAnn Gallery Belfast, May 4-27 2017

Posted on May 18, 2017 by

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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Stuart Calvin, Greater than I, May 4 – 18 2017, GTG Belfast

Posted on May 12, 2017 by

          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 →

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Unafraid Red, April 6 – May 4, 2017, QSS Belfast

Posted on May 9, 2017 by

Unafraid Red  (and the following U-Yellow, U-Blue and U-White)  curated by Dr Colin Darke has been inspired by Barnett Newman’s  Who is afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue ( four paintings made between 1966 -1970 as a pun on Albee’s play)) … Continue reading →

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Bbeyond Symposium Belfast April 3-8 2017

Posted on May 4, 2017 by

“I beg you….let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven.” (Giordano Bruno,1548 -1600)

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Robert Ellis: Proverbs, 3/3 – 15/4 2017 at Belfast Exposed

Posted on April 17, 2017 by

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 →

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ADRIAN O’CONNELL: INTERSTICE, March 2017, Engine Room Gallery, Belfast

Posted on April 2, 2017 by

The ribbon window of the gallery on second floor of this modernist building offered picturesque view over Belfast and light and calm to envelope O’Connell’s   paintings. A gentle host to the unleashed passion for the modernist idiom. Yet, it made … Continue reading →

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Michael Hanna: Predictable Contact, Naughton Gallery Belfast, 16.02.17 – 26.03.17

Posted on March 17, 2017 by

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

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David Turner: A Series of Small Explosions,QSS Gallery Belfast, 23-25

Posted on March 1, 2017 by

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

Posted on February 20, 2017 by

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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LISA GINGLES, 2 February – 3 March 2017, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast

Posted on February 15, 2017 by

  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 →

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Catherine Davison, A Kaleidoscope of Colour, QSS, Belfast, 19 -21 January 2017

Posted on January 26, 2017 by

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

Posted on January 19, 2017 by

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 →

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Ciara Finnegan at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2016, August 4 – September 10

Posted on January 3, 2017 by

  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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Aisling O’Beirn at Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, 2016

Posted on December 14, 2016 by

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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Moira McIver, Shadow Catcher, November 2016, Ards Art Centre, NI

Posted on December 13, 2016 by

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 →

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Keith Wilson, Calendar, MAC, Belfast, 2016

Posted on August 30, 2016 by

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

Posted on August 21, 2016 by

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

Posted on July 28, 2016 by

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 →

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Part 3: Cumulator 7, 7th July, 2016, The Point, Groomsport, NI, UK (Rainer Pagel)

Posted on July 14, 2016 by

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)

Posted on July 12, 2016 by

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 →

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Victories are shortlived – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 23.06.16 – 13.08.16

Posted on July 10, 2016 by

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 →

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Shahar Marcus: King of Falafel, video 2016

Posted on July 8, 2016 by

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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Angelo Garoglio -ways of seeing

Posted on June 30, 2016 by

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 →

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Martin Boyle at GTG Belfast, 28.04 – 11.06 2016

Posted on May 29, 2016 by

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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Lorraine Burrell at GTG, Belfast, May 2016

Posted on May 20, 2016 by

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 →

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Open work ? Belfast (March/April 2016)

Posted on May 7, 2016 by

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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Difficult art (April 2016)

Posted on April 28, 2016 by

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 →

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Peter FitzGerald, 2016, http://connemara.website

Posted on April 8, 2016 by

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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Colin Darke at Suki Tea 2015 Art prize at Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 25th February -26th March 2016

Posted on March 25, 2016 by

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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Bbeyond at Ulster Museum, Belfast, 12th March 2016

Posted on March 20, 2016 by

  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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Chris Wilson, Dwelling Place, The Oriel Gallery, Antrim Castle Gardens, 28 January – 5th March 2016

Posted on March 16, 2016 by

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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GUEST – at the Arts and Disability Forum gallery, Belfast, January 5 , 2016 –

Posted on February 13, 2016 by

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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GROUPSHOW, Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, January 14 – February 13, 2016

Posted on February 9, 2016 by

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 →

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SHE DEVIL

Posted on January 28, 2016 by

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 →

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Shiro Masuyama, Self-Sufficient Life, Millennium Court Art Centre, Portadown October 2015

Posted on October 5, 2015 by

  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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Jordan Hutchings, Body of Work, GTG, Belfast, 4-25 June 2015

Posted on July 10, 2015 by

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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