Columns - Features

Visual Arts Outlook (13/4)

The Plane Invasion

There are so many events happening this week in Belfast and across Ireland so please get out there and support them, writes Mary Stevens. We’re travelling from Cork, to Limerick and back to Belfast for this weeks outlook, seeing a huge variety of art practices.

This week also saw the Dublin Launch of the Irish National Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale.  Sean Lynch will present Adventure: Capital  in the Irish pavillion. The Biennale will open to the public on the 9th May and continue into November. Much more information to follow in the coming months…

Blue House Gallery – Co.Cork
Jason Lee, Diarmuid Breen

April 17 – April 29

Diarmuid Breen and Jason Lee present their first joint contemporary painting show in the Blue House Gallery Cork opening this Friday evening. Breen’s series entitled Existing Realities is informed by vintage photographs. Lee’s work, titled Cartoon, layers various forms of painting depicting the existence of crows. These new works created in just two months look at various aspects of memory and photography through the medium of painting.

Jason Lee The Crows_The Pyramids

Diarmuid Breen

QSS Bedford Street – Belfast
Sonorities Festival 2015 – Sound Art Installations
April 16 – May 2
Installations by: Sam Salem, Matt Parker
Performances by: Una Lee, Thomas McConville, Isobel Anderson, Tristan Clutterbuc

Thursday evening at 6pm sees the opening of one of the events of the Sonorities Festival in QSS Bedford Street. Matt Parker who was this year nominated for the Aesthetica Art Prize presents his work The Cloud is More than Air and Water and  Sam Salem’s Neamhroinnte form the basis of this installation with further performances by the artists listed above. There will be live interventions on Sat 25th April and Sat 2nd May at 3pm.

The Sonorities Festival is Ireland’s premier festival of digital and contemporary music, digital arts, sound art, video and installation art. With a base at Queen’s University’s Sonic Arts Research Centre the festival will travel to Goldsmith’s Art College London and feature various events around the city of Belfast.

The LSAD Church Gallery – Limerick
The Plane Invasion
April 9 – April 22

Last Wednesday saw the opening of The Plane Invasion (pictured, main), a group exhibition of 60 different practitioners. The show was anchored by each artists connection with the late Orlagh Spain, an artist who attended Limerick School of Art and Design and studied Printmaking. The Pane Invasion is a thematic show that catalogues each artists response to the finding of twenty five World War Two encyclopedias. The theme is loose in that it allows each artist to explore their own practice further but also to collectively create a celebration of the memory of Orlagh Spain. Continuing until the 22nd April,this expansive show shows an intricate and sensitive approach to the memory of a loved one but in a confident and expressive way.

Taylor Galleries Dublin
LACUNA [ 03 ]
April 17 – May 9

Six artists have been asked to participate in the third Lacuna [ ] series. Curated by Sabina Mac Mahon and David Quinn, the series which runs alongside the main exhibition at the Taylor Gallery,the Lacuna [ ] projects continue to experiment with various curatorial themes. The show embraces the diversity of each selected artists’ practice.  Lacuna [03] opens this Thursday evening at 6pm and will feature the work of Mark Cullen, Cliona Harmey, Chloë Nagle, Kyle McDonald, Lesley-Ann O’Connell and Rachel-Rose O’Leary.

PS2 – Belfast
Living with Art and Art within Living: An Afternoon with the Household Collective
April 18 2pm- 4pm

Household Collective will be hosting a discussion in Ps2 sharing ideas and research that has been compiled as part of their residency at the gallery space. Household is a curatorial collective which questions the presentation of art spaces and encourages people to re-evaluate the way in which they interact with art in domestic situations. This discussion should bring up interesting ideas about “art in public and private spaces, the politics of the home, the power of hospitality” among other themes and topics.

Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment: householdbelfast@gmail.com

University of Ulster – Belfast
Miguel Martin: Out of Site

April 16 – May 16

A series of new work by Miguel Martin also opens on Thursday Night in Belfast’s Art College Gallery. Curated by Fergal O’Malley, the drawings look at the various spaces and arts practices that can be found in the Orpheus building which was originally the Belfast’s Co-operative. The University is currently undergoing major reconstruction with the Orpheus building due to be demolished in September this year. Martins work documents the subtleties and intricacies of the art college, creating a detailed portrait of this iconic place.