• Exhibition: Signs and Ciphers @ Golden Thread

    August 29, 2017 - By 

    Described as less of a retrospective into his work and more of an investigation into certain prevailing themes and characteristics, Signs and Ciphers is a new dual location exhibition and features the work of Northern Irish artist Alistair Wilson. The first two parts to this four-part exhibition are on show in Belfast’s Golden Thread Gallery and features newer work from Wilson. The remaining two parts open later this year in Portadown’s Millennium Court Arts Centre, and feature older works stretching back to the 1970’s. Wilson, who represented Northern Ireland at the 2005 Venice Biennale, is an investigative artist, exploring the materials he surrounds himself with,…

  • Exhibition: Observations @ Belfast Exposed

    August 31, 2017 - By 

    Celestograph by August Strindberg, 1894. Image kindly provided by the National Library of Sweden Outside of his native Sweden August Strindberg is predominantly known as a playwright and a poet, such was the high regard his was held in within these disciplines. Strindberg was in fact a polymath who explored painting (he was friends with Edvard Munch and Paul Gauguin) and the photographic arts. It is the latter, and specifically his late 19th Century experiments in capturing he might sky, that severs as the departure point for Observations, the current show in Belfast Exposed. For his ‘Celestographs’, Strindberg placed sensitised plates…

  • Exhibition: Memorabilia @ Belfast Exposed

    August 15, 2017 - By 

    This week is the last to the Memorabilia exhibition in Belfast Exposed – closing this Saturday August 19th. Gábor Arion Kudász, son of Hungarian artist Emese Kudász, began photographing and documenting his mother’s archive in the years that followed her death in 2010. Gábor’s cataloguing of his mother’s work threw up a interesting observation – is the coherence between objects one that existed prior to his undertaking of the task? Or is it one generated through the creation of an archive? What is for certain is the context these works were created in is separate to the context they are placed under when…

  • Picture This: The Honeymoon Suite @ Golden Thread

    July 15, 2017 - By 

    There comes a point in self-portraiture when you lose focus of the fact the imagery in front depicts the artist themselves. While you don’t truly ‘forget’ this knowledge, it doesn’t become the overriding concern. The work transcends itself from self-portraiture to portraiture, and with this emerges the possibility of the work to speak of societal observations rather than personal musings. The more successful the work is the quicker this process happens, which allows for greater insight. The most obvious case of this, in the history of photography, is the canon of Cindy Sherman. It’s hard not to think of Sherman…

  • RMCK – RMCK

    June 20, 2017 - By 

    Anonymous, instrumental, distorted banjo looping project RMCK has just released their self-titled debut EP through Solid Choice Industries. The EP was recorded in Belfast’s Start Together Studios by Rocky O’Reilly, with engineer Ben McAuley on drums. Hypnotic & swirling, the music could broadly fall under the banner of math or post-rock but falls into fewer of its trappings, being much more intuitive and less maximalist – the work of one lone artist who remains unidentified. Solid Choice claim to know their identity but wish to protect their anonymity – colour us very intrigued as to whether they make the move to live…

  • Exhibition: Sea and Summer @ ArtisAnn Gallery

    July 5, 2017 - By 

    Opening tonight in Belfast’s ArtisAnn Gallery is a new exhibition featuring the work of Northern Irish painter Carol Graham. Graham, who’s portraits of Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson hang in Queen’s University and Trinity College respectively, is due to present a selection of works from the past decade as well as newly created pieces specifically for the show. These works will draw on the themes of the Sea and the Summer, and this lends itself to the name of the exhibition: Sea and Summer. The preview opens tonight from 6:30pm until 8:30pm, with the show set to continue until August…

  • Picture This: Belfast Photo Festival

    June 20, 2017 - By 

    Sensory Deprivation – © Juno Calypso 2016 Belfast Photo Festival returns to the Northern Irish capital for the month of June. The main theme for this year’s biennial is Sexuality & Gender, with eleven exhibitions taking place across Belfast discussing this topic. As well as the festival’s main brief a number of exhibitions discussing other subjects are integrated within the programme along with a host of talks, workshops and events. With the current social and political environments that exist on this island, and further a field, a look at the role of gender in society, and specifically the ability of the…