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Recent Posts
- Fiona Ní Mhaoilir: What-Ifs
- Islands & Myths, Belfast Exposed, 29 June – 18 August 2018
- Marilyn Arsem at Transactions, Belfast, 3 May, 2018.
- Brian Wallace, Pieces, June 2018, Engine Room Gallery, Belfast
- Mark Francis Fenning, Polaroid Boys, Ards Art Centre, until 30 June 2018
- Sarah Wren Wilson, A Meddlesome Meeting, The Sunburst Gallery Newtownards, June 2018
- End of Year Degree Shows, Ulster University, Belfast, 2018 :Karl Hagan
- End of the Year Shows, Ulster University, Belfast, 2018, part 2: Szabo and Canning
- End of Year Shows, UU, Belfast, 2018 June 8 for a week
- After an Act. Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, 26th May – 14th July 2018
- Pat Harris, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast, 24 May – 23 June 2018
- David Moore, Lisa and John, Belfast Exposed, May 4 – June 16 2018
- Clare Gallagher, Verges, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, May 3 – June 30 2018
- Charlie Scott, What Fell From the Mountain, The Georgian Gallery, Newtownards, 19 April – 24 May 2018
- Elizabeth Magill, Headland, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 11 May – 23 September, 2018
- The Fragmented Mind, MAC, Belfast, 4 May -29 July 2018
- HELEN G BLAKE, New Paintings, Fenderesky Gallery Belfast, 26 April – 18 May 2018
- Helena Hamilton, Semblance and Event, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, 7April -23 May 2018
- Listening Wall at QSS, Belfast
- Ashley B Holmes
Slavka Sverakova
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Category Archives: review
Marilyn Arsem at Transactions, Belfast, 3 May, 2018.
Sitting on a bench in front of the Castle Court shopping centre in Belfast, Arsem did some hand sewing. At her feet two bags – one with bodies and heads of soft toys she bought whole but dismembered, the other … Continue reading
Brian Wallace, Pieces, June 2018, Engine Room Gallery, Belfast
This kind of playful courage to reminisce on gestural abstract expressionism belongs to this painter’s youth and memory of it. The broken world of strong hues without attachment to a story or an object is naturally suitable to express a … Continue reading
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Mark Francis Fenning, Polaroid Boys, Ards Art Centre, until 30 June 2018
During a passive contemplation it all looked like polaroids: white framed, round frame, no frame, and assemblage. As if multitude of sameness were exercised to include differences. As images of male persons, faces or torsos, they tell of identities. Until … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged assemblage, Giclee Polaroid Prints on Hahnemuehle paper, images of men, Polaroid
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After an Act. Golden Thread Gallery Belfast, 26th May – 14th July 2018
I just read that Boo Saville sands back painted layers until the canvas gleams. (https://frieze.com/article/damien-hirst-spotlights-emerging-talent-his-newport-street-gallery-show) Vanishing of brushstrokes and tones until the canvas shines vanishes also a painting canon like the albertian window, gesture paintings etc. Reminds me of Hans Magnus … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Brian Fay, Deb Covell, drawing, I Kant, installation, Isamu Noguchi, Italo Calvino, Jo McGonigal, painting, sculpture, Susan Connolly, Tamara Kostianowsky
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Pat Harris, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast, 24 May – 23 June 2018
Compared to Pat Harris’s recent paintings of flowers the marks above are not only heavily saturated but in the process of metamorphosis – a man’s body with arms stretched apart took orders from Ovidius Naso, marking the vase and the … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Anxiety, Co Mayo, flower paintings, Ovidius Naso, Ralph Waldo Emerson, seascapes
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David Moore, Lisa and John, Belfast Exposed, May 4 – June 16 2018
The eighteen photographs Pictures from the Real World are displayed in a rumbling visual essay of small formats that accentuates the feeling of gentle trespassing into private lives, this time with the enthusiastic agreement of the participating family. If the … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Derby, documentary photography, Extreme RAY 2018, Format 17, maquettes, photography, projects, video
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Clare Gallagher, Verges, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, May 3 – June 30 2018
Clare Gallagher does not name each image in the set of Verges, instead, she gives the viewer the choice to attend closely and directly to the subject her photography, weeds: ” They defy preoccupations with property and boundaries, growing wherever suits … Continue reading
Charlie Scott, What Fell From the Mountain, The Georgian Gallery, Newtownards, 19 April – 24 May 2018
“Growing surrounded by the silent bogs, lakes and halted railway line in Co Donegal, I am interested in nature…” would have been enough of an introduction to Scott’s peaty paintings. Nevertheless the young painter feels the pressure to propose an … Continue reading
Elizabeth Magill, Headland, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 11 May – 23 September, 2018
In a sight rooted practice the similarities and differences between these two images have defining power. They define even those images that are on their own. These landscapes are a modern equivalent of Plato’s answer to Timaeus asking how … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged A Warhol, C Monet, Giordano Bruno, Grunewald, Italo Calvino, John O'Donoghue, oil painting, P Cezanne, screenprint
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The Fragmented Mind, MAC, Belfast, 4 May -29 July 2018
It is an exhibition and several events that include: Friday Lunchtime Recitals (horn, cello, orchestra, harp), poetry reading on a Saturday, screenings a films on Tuesdays, lectures on Thursday and nine workshops offered by artists Sharon Kelly, Ursula Burke and Tonya McMullan. … Continue reading
HELEN G BLAKE, New Paintings, Fenderesky Gallery Belfast, 26 April – 18 May 2018
Fourteen images each in one of three sizes favoured by Blake for years now – are beautifully displayed in a gentle embrace of pristine white walls. They are reminiscent of abstract paintings rewarded in 2006 by the Turner Price … Continue reading
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Helena Hamilton, Semblance and Event, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, 7April -23 May 2018
Light. Invitation to unthink the familiarity of the tube lights, the inevitability of a particular use. Standing near it, watching, looking, walking around, near and away, reminded me of Keyezua’s recent comment on her photographies: “After finishing at the Royal … Continue reading
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Tagged drawings, Eva Hesse, Light tubes, performance, photography, video
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Anka Lesniak, Invisible inVisible, 2017
With a subtitle “Women disconnected from the history” the paperback was published by Stowarzyszenie Sztuka i Dokumentacja (ISBN 978-83-931176-6-6). I have added ISBN so that you may identify the book, missing little signs and accents in writing Polish names on this … Continue reading
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Tagged alternative history, Anka Lesniak, Art in Poland, art., found objects, installations, Performance Art, site specific art, texts
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Shonky:The Aesthetics of Awkwardness, MAC, Belfast, 20 October 2017 – 14 January 2018
The exhibition aims to explore the nature of visual awkwardness through the work of artists and architects Arakawa and Gins; Cosima von Bonin; Niki de Saint Phalle; Benedict Drew; Justin Favela; Duggie Fields; Louise Fishman; Friedensreich Hundertwasser; Kate Lepper; Andrew … Continue reading
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Tagged aesthetics, awkwardness, Hayward Touring Curatorial Open Painting, installation, performance, sculpture, shonky, sound installation, video
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Willie Heron: Sculptures and works on paper, Fenderesky Gallery Belfast, 12 October- 10 November 2017
They exceed a size of hand, of handheld art like Books of Hours, whose investment in private thought is difficult to surpass. Yet, the need to protect freedom of thought is as great and urgent as in the 20th C … Continue reading
Hughie O’Donoghue: The Tempest, Carlisle Memorial Church, Belfast, 10 – 28 October, 2017
The slowly self-destructing 19th C neo- gothic building has offered genuinely enhancing milieu to view the tarpaulin sized paintings. The Steady Drummer and Night Visitor are both 12x18ft and Cargo measures 12x24ft. With the smaller paintings the installation has evoked … Continue reading
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Graham Gingles: Boxes and Drawings, Fenderesky Gallery Belfast, 7th Sept – 7th October 2017
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
Helen Blake, David Crone, Tony Hill: Works on paper, Fenderesky Gallery I, Belfast, Sept 7 – Oct 7, 2017
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
ALISTAIR WILSON: Signs and ciphers, GTG Belfast, 3 August – 19th September 2017
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
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
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
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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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
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
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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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
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Tagged abstraction, Arcimboldo, catharsis, Conceptual art, hyperrealism, mimesis
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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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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
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Domenico Ghirlandaio, Doric order, Ellen Altfest, Roman atrium house, Sacra Conversazione
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LISA STANSBIE, PLATFORM ARTS, BELFAST, 5 -26 SEPTEMBER 2014
A photograph of the artist who as a qualified swimmer obeys the rules overseen by official bodies, The Channel Swims and Piloting Federation or Channel Swimming Association. That hierarchy is somewhat undermined by her determined stare signalling her being … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Aristotle, Dan Shipsides, habitus, J. Beuys, Marcel Mauss, Pierre Bourdieu, Simone Weill, swimming, the Channel, U Rueckriem
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Colin Darke: Grotesque Mediocrity, Mac Belfast, 8 August – 19 October 2014
The spiral from the veritable belly of Monsieur UBU flew over 118 years and over the distance from Paris to Belfast courtesy of an artists’ artist Dr Colin Darke.
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Tagged A Jarry, apples, B Brecht, Carrara marble, coins, collanders, Doc Martin's boots, Dr Colin Darke, floor instalation, Karl Marx, Karl Popper, machetes, Mediocrity, Shklovskij, Ubu Roi, useful objects
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Peter Liversidge: Doppelganger at MAC Belfast, 8 August -19 October, 2014
First exhibited by Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh from 1st August till 21st September 2013 the facsimiles of ten Max Klinger’s etchings from 1881, and Liversidge’ s large scale prints of them were complemented by an imagined room, constructed in … Continue reading
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Tagged Carrara marble, etchings, Ingleby Gallery, MAC Belfast, Marcantonio Raimondi, Max Klinger, prints
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Graham Gingles at MAC, Belfast, 2014
Graham Gingles at MAC, August, Belfast, 2014 As Fukuyama put it: in the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history. A phase of contemporary art has also been … Continue reading
John Robinson, Installation, June 2014, University of Ulster, Belfast
The following short statement is John Robinson introduction to the two installations for the MFA final exhibition. Transfigure originates from the subtle changes of light that occur at Dawn and Dusk, in which visual awareness is heightened and a there … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged instalation, James Turrell, painting, role of detail, sculpture, Veit Stoss
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Jennifer Trouton, Ties that Bind, 2013
This oil on linen differs by its size 158 x 188 cm, from the rest of Trouton’s oeuvre I have seen. Most are small scale still lives, 14.5 x 14.5 cm, arranged in large grids. Its width is significant … Continue reading
Posted in essay, review
Tagged Ernst Cassirer, Henry of Ghent, Intelligent Life June 2014, Jean Simeon Baptiste Chardin.E.H. Gombrich, Karsten Rauss, Master of Flemalle, Merode Altarpiece, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Ortega y Gasset, Pico della Mirandola, Robert Campin, Rogier van der Weyden, Sanderson's Stag Hunting wallpaper, verisimilitude
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Susan Connolly, Something about Some Things to do With Paint
Curated by Hugh Mulholland at MAC, Belfast, 9May – 22 June 2014 Great art and mediocrity can get confused, even by experts. But that’s why we need to see, and read, as much as we can. The more we’re exposed … Continue reading
WILDSCAPES
The sound of Campbells work behind the back wall saturated the whole gallery, interfering with the viewing of works by Moffett (on the wall) and Hughes(between the columns) Curated by Phillip McCrilly and supported by Ben Crothers’s substantial informative essay … Continue reading
this is authenticity, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 3-24 April 2014
Curated by Eoin Dara the exhibition takes its name from a marketing slogan for a gated residential development Santa Elena City in the Philippines: What is real, what is honest, what is true …this is authenticity. After that it … Continue reading
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Tagged Adrian Duncan, bungalow design, Eoin Dara, Herman Muthesius, J.Mukarovsky, Jun Yang, Martin Boyle, self-building
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Keith Connolly, Verbally Confirmed, Waterfront Hall, Belfast, January 10 -31, 2014
Connolly is a classical modernist – and not just for the parallel an eye may discern between his images and those of Herbert Bayer and Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Bauhaus greats who inspired some of his decision.
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Tagged Giclee Archive Prints, Herbert Bayer, Laszlo Moholy Nagy, light
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TACTILE at Catalyst Arts, Belfast, 2014. Helen MacMahon, Polychromatic Shadow Configuration Device, 2013.
Mac Mahon lists her engagement with space and light as a dominant concept of her art practice (see http://www.helenmacmahon.com “Subject matter is simply space and light”) Before I write about her installation in some detail, I would like to introduce … Continue reading
Slavka Sverakova 