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Recent Posts
- Art of the print….
- Jayne Cherry at Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, 5 August – 27 September 2017
- Graham Gingles: Boxes and Drawings, Fenderesky Gallery Belfast, 7th Sept – 7th October 2017
- Helen Blake, David Crone, Tony Hill: Works on paper, Fenderesky Gallery I, Belfast, Sept 7 – Oct 7, 2017
- ALISTAIR WILSON: Signs and ciphers, GTG Belfast, 3 August – 19th September 2017
- Unafraid Yellow (August 4 -31) and Unafraid Blue (September 8-28) at QSS, Belfast, 2017
- CAPTURED: Rich, Rugged and Fresh, Goose Lane Gallery, Belfast, 7th – 23rd September 2017
- 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
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Category Archives: review
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
3 Comments
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
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Tagged Arte Povera, David Smith, drawings, Graz Kunsthaus Museum, installation, Modernism, rubbings, sculpture, W. Benjamin
4 Comments
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
Susan MacWilliam: Kathleen, 2014, video, 33 minutes
To view online: http://vimeo.com/susanmacwilliam/kathleen An approximation of a video by still images and citation from the archival sources has its disadvantages. For example: loss of the rhythm at which each image stays on screen, the uncertainty that words and images … Continue reading
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Tagged coincidencies, Derry-Londonderry. UK City of Culture 2013, Kathleen Coyle
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Angela Halliday, Topographies: Smithfield, Belfast, 2013
This archival image from 2011 presents the new Smithfield Market replacing the one the perished in the fire during the so called Troubles. The disappeared one is still cherished in a charming web of stories, histories and tales, with a … Continue reading
Cathy Henderson, Ebb and Flow. at the ADF Gallery, Belfast, 17 January – 7 March 2014
Cathy Henderson exhibited twenty images aiming “…to capture the transience of the coastal view: a sense of shifting skies, and the persistently fluctuating mood of weather.” (News Release January 2014).
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Tagged Alberto Giacometti, Albrecht Altdorfer, Alesso Baldovinetti, F Nietzsche, Jacob van Ruisdael, painting, skyscape, watercolour
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MOMENTUM at Catalyst Arts Belfast, 24 – 31 January 2014
Ten postgraduate students of the MFA at the University of Ulster presented interim exhibition in the both exhibition spaces of the CA gallery. The image on this poster is a screen grab of a video by Jonny McEwen (b 1966).Nothing moves … Continue reading
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Tagged Andrew Glenn, animals, Aoife Brady, blue hue, Catalyst Arts Belfast, Cathy Drooney, computer code, Elizabeth-Anne Curistan, Erin Hagan, forest, installation, Jonny McEwen, Katrina Sheena Smyth, landscape, light, Master of Fine Art. University of Ulster, myth, Pamela Byrne, Performance Art, Rosanna McKenna, sculpture, textile, video
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Equilibrium? Royden Rabinowitch at the GTG Project room, 09/01/2014 – 25/01/2014
The drawing above carries the instruction for the sculpture that appears in this exhibition. Organised in partnership with Politics Plus (www.politicsplus.com, launched on February 2oth, 2013) it aims at an elusive instrumental value of art while focusing on one work … Continue reading
Michael Hanna, Behaviour Setting, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown, 7 December – 25 January 2014
Delightful generosity of spirit and academic erudition of Dr Declan Long, who wrote the catalogue essay, have not prepared me for the visual beauty of the animation of patterns in Gallery One, nor for the immersive environment in Gallery Two. … Continue reading
An afternoon at MAC, Saturday, 11 January, 2014.
At three o’clock, in front of approximately fifty viewers, Hugh O’Donnell started his performance in front of the projected video. Its subject was the weeping face of a Dutch artist who disappeared, later, in 1975, attempting to cross the Atlantic … Continue reading
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Tagged Bas Jan Ader, dance, ephemeral, Hugh O'Donnell, MAC Belfast, Maeve McGreavy, Performance Art, Sandra Johnston, The Mystery of Tears
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Shiro Masuyama, Borderline Project, 2013/2014
This is not a museum vitrine – it is a kind a table top at the front window of a caravan which
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Tagged Britishness, caravan, collection, cultural memory, Esther Shalev Gertz, irishness, moral lesson, Shiro Masuyama
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FIONA LARKIN, BACKSTORY, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, 6 December 2012 -17 January 2014
The idea that something commonplace can be transfigured into exceptional has been habitually compulsorily twinned with reason and consent. Both appear at the preparatory stages of this exhibition.
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Tagged book, Catalyst Arts Belfast, essays, installation, J Baudrillard, lake, photography, scarfs, Sophie Calle, translation, video, Vito Acconci
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Distributed through Space and Time, Golden Thread gallery, Belfast, December 5 2013 – January 19 2014
Curated by Sarah McAvera the exhibition takes its title from one line in Canto 1 of Pale Fire(1962) by V Nabokov. The curator limited the number of artists to three, possibly in relation to the small size of the Project … Continue reading
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Tagged Belfast, Christopher Campbell, Deirdre McKenna, fiction, Golden Thread Gallery, Max Ernst, poioumenon, Sarah McAvera, V Nabokov, Zoe Murdoch
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SHARON KELLY and ROBIN PRICE, Process Lab, Rehearsal Room PS2, Belfast, Nov 18 -22nd, 2013
I visited this installment of Rehearsal Room series on its last day. On the wall opposite the window a continuous video of animated drawings easily competed for attention with three large charcoal drawings on the right and one exquisite work … Continue reading
FORCES, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, 8-29 November 2013
Curated by Rob Hilken the exhibition offers a chaste view on relationship of art and science. Five artists zoom on nature’s forces e.g. radiation, gravity, electricity, and magnetism, traditionally subjects of scientific investigation, appropriating them for sculpture, video and installation, … Continue reading
TONY HILL, New Works at Fenderesky, Belfast, October 17 – November 16, 2013
This Mondrian is in a private collection, thus it is very unlikely that Hill saw it while he formulated his idea of visual art. I have included it to provide evidence for an aesthetic order many artists in Europe, two … Continue reading
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Tagged Belfast, Dan Flavin, De Stijl, Donald Judd, Fenderesky, Frank Stella, ladder, minimalism, Orphism, sculpture, Tony Hill
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Moments of Inception, 17 Oct – 16 Nov, 2013, Queen Street Studios and Gallery, Belfast
Images courtesy Tony Corey Expanding the curatorial field Eoin Dara has chosen the unexpected. Objects that may or may not be art, nonchalant debris of something else, birth of an idea made just about visible, or not. Dara describes his … Continue reading
Posted in article, review
Tagged A C Danto, Alacoque Davey, Angela Hackett, Ashley Holmes, Belfast, Catherine Davison, Christoff Gillen, Clement McAleer, Colm Clarke, David Turner, Dorothy Hunter, Dougal McKenzie, Eoin Dara, Gail Ritchie, Gerry Devlin, Grace McMurray, Imperial War Museum London, Jennifer Trouton, Majella Clancy, QSS, Sally Young, Sinead McKeever, Susan McKeever, Terry McAllister, Zoe Murdoch
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A SUBTLE MATTER at Catalyst Arts, Belfast, 3 – 25 October 2013
Curated by Amy Brooks it has her aesthetic sensitivities all over, with the exception of a rather massive box housing Emmanuelle Negre’s fantasy in light. The above image indicates
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Tagged Amy Brooks, Belfast, Catalyst Arts, Dorothy Cross, Emanuelle Negre, Jacqueline Holt, Laura McMorrow, Marie Farrington
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