Queen Street Studios

RDH: SEPTEMBER 2024

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01/09/24

Should LOFT TALK return?

05/09/24

Met Khaled Barakeh at his show in the MAC.

Late Night Art - Belfast Exposed, DAS, PS2 and VAULT.

06/09/24

‘Hindsight Study’ into RAA show!

08/09/24

Slow and steady progress on new portrait.

12/09/24

Basil Blackshaw: Selected Works in Ulster Presents. Always something incredibly moving about the last work an artist worked on. Almost like a lifetime's experience culminating into one last piece.

Late Night Art - East Belfast. Visit to Platform, Strand Arts Centre, Arts Care and Creative Exchange. Loud in between.

Have really gotten out of the way of note taking. Subbed for worse habits. How to rectify? Stop. Breathe. Think.

15/09/24

Studio time. Portrait - ‘Never Be Seen’. All but there. Some moments where the background tone looks fine and works well and others where it looks like a mistake and falls apart. Chips and changes - probably down to the light through the day (or indecisiveness).

Resting on it for now.

22/09/24

One week on and yes, the background definitely needs addressed. Worked it so its back to a very similar colour to how it started. Finished and full circle.

26/09/24

QSS at 40!

Brilliant show and will be back to see multiple times.

29/09/24

Studio and 'Tesla' painting is gone - for now. Drawing up new works.

What words or text become like the ground of a painting?

Glenn Ligon - The Week in Art podcast.

'Spare Change Study', ‘Running Errands', 'Repulsion from a Clown'.

Some good starts. 'RfaC’ redeemed somewhat for now.

2023 in Pictures

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JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

RDH: NOVEMBER 2021

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03/11/21

Some good sketchbook work today.

04/11/21

National Common Sense Day. “Portrait of NI: Neither an elegy nor a manifesto” in the Golden Thread Gallery. Interesting layout, gathering work of a similar ilk throughout the decades together.

Anne Tallentire’s “But this material…” in the MAC; great use of spatial interaction with the work and the gallery space. Some really strong work in “The presence of Absence” exhibition from the MFA 2019 cohort group show in QSS.

Really enjoyed the opening of the “Salonathon Show 2021” in Platform - seeing my work alongside some great artists and meeting up with familiar faces!

05/11/21

Wincing the odd time.

06/11/21

“Portraiture exposes the gap between the interior and exterior selves.”

-unknown-

Priming is all today amounted to.

08/11/21

Didn’t realise the gravity…

11/11/21

What was thought to be a dud - must have turned out alright!

12/11/21

Several pieces sketched up today.

13/11/21

Detail of “The Doctor will See you Now”

Really good day in the studio. “The Doctor will see you Now” finished! This new philosophy of keeping it loose, not striving for a realistic perfection, which is ultimately unattainable anyway, seems to be working.

I have a tendency of focussing on niggles to the point when the paintings get tight and the imagery too self aware. Learning to let go and step back a stage or two sooner seems to work for me.

“The Doctor will See you Now” Oil and Charcoal on Canvas 150cm x 100cm

16/11/21

Didn’t get accepted but that’s OK. Sketchbook work tonight to get brain working.

17/11/21

Very quick trip up to Derry to see “Tilt [At Windmills]” with work by Jarkko Räsänen, Fionnuala Doran, Paul Moore and Robin Price in CCA and “The Shrinking Universe” by Eva Rothschild in VOID.

20/11/21

Blocking in and working out logistics on three pieces today.

29/11/21

Nervous but that’s pretty much down to the unknown factor.

Exhibition Highlights 2018

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These five exhibitions are in chronological order and are only my favourites of the shows I was able to attend in person. There were many that I was dying to see but in the end, couldn’t make.

WHITE

Curated by Colin Darke

QSS Gallery, Belfast

02/02/18 - 22/02/18

This was the fourth group show curated by Colin Darke that was based upon the four titles of Barnett Newman paintings (“Whose Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue”). According to the text accompanying the exhibition, linking works in accordance with colour “allows for a level of visual cohesion, while retaining the conceptual and aesthetic diversity that defines Queen Street Studios”. Ordinarily white, in a gallery context, inhabits the space between works. In this show however you become strangely aware of the normally silent walls. In Craig Donald’s installation “Ozymandias” sections of the gallery wall are set centre stage; framed by colours that correlate in other drawings and paintings within the installation. You become aware of the void.

Nightfall - amplissium terrarum tractum

David Godbold

Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast

03/02/18 - 10/03/18

This group exhibition by David Godbold in the Golden Thread Gallery really was a stunner. In gallery one, the works that give the name of the show, “Nightfall - Amplissium terrarum tractum” takes up an entire wall. Consisting of 116 framed drawings and a wall drawing in neon, I found myself getting drawn into the gorgeous and witty drawings usually accompanied with text loaded with humour and a certain political sting. Then all of a sudden I would walk backwards, trying to take in the sheer audacious scale of the work as a whole. I was especially taken by the drawing with the text "Infamy, infamy, everybody’s got it in for me” - a one liner from “Carry on Cleo” which my dad regularly cries aloud. Gallery two sees landscapes, beautifully painted and paired off with one in daylight and the other at night. Showing these romantic locations at different times of the day means you can never fully see the region in its entirety.

Future Perfect - Contemporary Art from Germany

Curated by Angelika Stepken and Philipp Ziegler

The Model, Sligo

06/05/18 - 01/07/18

During a summer break down to Sligo it would have been rude not to visit some of the galleries. This travelling group show did not disappoint. Sixteen artists envision and speculate about the future and reflect on the promises it could bring. The installation of Nora Schultz called “Discovery of the Primitive” reminded me of a transportable monolith like the one in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Schultz gathers found objects from around her Berlin studio to assemble these delicate structures that also double as printmaking stations. It dominated the room and sticks in the memory. Antje Majewski’s paintings were impressive in scale and in detail. The lengthy title “Decorative element that once adorned a passage leading to a shrine” was a large circular painting consisting of smaller overlapped orbs of differing gold and green. The same ‘decorative element’ makes a cameo in the even larger painting - more akin to history painting of old. “The Donation” sees a large group of people witnessing an exchange in what looks like a gallery with warped dimensions and off kilter paintings on the wall.

At the gates of the Music Palace

Alex Cecchetti

Curated by Mary Cremin

VOID Gallery, Derry-Londonderry

04/08/18 - 22/09/18

I was lucky enough to see this show on the opening night where the artist Alex Cecchetti was giving a guided tour of the works. A serial collaborator almost all of the works came to fruition as a result of Cecchetti working with musicians, dancers and singers. The first gallery was bathed in a pink light with two large copper cones suspended at the far end. If you move across the sensors musical notes are played and according to different gestures you can actually play music. Cecchetti and a dancer then played a piece of music they composed by dancing in front of the “Music Hall” installation. Gallery 2 held a sound installation entitled “Cetaceans” where a human choir sang like whales. This room was in darkness and you were encouraged to lay down and let the sounds wash over you. The third room had my favourite piece of collaborative work by Cecchetti. Oil paintings on crystal and rise paper hangs from a structure surrounding a piano meaning when people from the tour poured in and no matter where they stood they could see the works on the paper - even from the back where I stood. A synesthetic musician then sat at the piano and read the works like a sheet of music. Even by just watching the paintings you could follow the musician as they played and I found it totally engrossing. Probably the best show featuring audience participation I’ve seen.

Not Half Right

Jane McCormick

Atypical Gallery, Belfast

12/11/18 - 21/12/18

I stumbled into the Atypical gallery on my way to see the MAC international exhibition (which had incredible works by Ali Cherri, Aisling O’Beirn and the winner Nikolaus Gansterer) and hadn’t any preconceived notions what “Not Half Right” by Jane McCormick contained. What I came across was an incredibly strong practice that explores deeply personal and intimate issues in a scarily wide range of media. Medicine bottles with text and images of children replaced the label. A heart shaped box with tablets instead of chocolates resonated with me. It was humorous and darkly menacing at the same time. Is it a comment on today’s ‘there’s a pill for that’ culture, a love note to how medication has helped the artist or something else? You can’t help but bring your own experience to the work here. The self portrait drawings on what McCormick calls “useless articles and medically-related tat” are visceral, bold and expresses the frustrating and tiring nature of the “never ending search for ‘the cure’”.