Christmas Exhibition 2013

The Engine Room Gallery is delighted to host the annual Christmas Exhibition, a much anticipated highlight of the gallery year. 

Alick Knox, Cheryl Bleakly, Jim Millar and Jack Pakenham, sculpture by James Mercer and William Green.

We held a preview on Thursday 5th December which was well attended by many artists, friends and visitors, including a group from Belfast Art Tours who were visiting a number of galleries and studios in East Belfast.

'Tauto 2' by Mark Chambers

Nearly 40 artists took part in the exhibition, featuring a wide range of artistic style and medium, including painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking and two fantastic works making use of light.

Cliff Brooks, Colin Corkey and Ray Duncan

Bill Penney and Patrick Colhoun

Jan Powell

Alick Knox, Cheryl Bleakly and Jim Millar

Jack Pakenham, Colin Davis, Peter Mooney and James Mercer

'Rogue' by Rosemary McMillen

The participating artists are: Cheryl Bleakly, Marjorie Bloch, Marcus Blockson, Cliff Brooks, Mark Chambers, Patrick Colhoun, Colin Corkey, Jill Corkey, Richard Darling, Colin Davis, Ray Duncan, Sam Fleming, Ivan Frew, Liam de Frinse, J. Gildea, William Green, Ashley B Holmes, Joanne Jamison, Alick Knox, John MaCormac, Mary Martin, Susanna McConville, Colin McGookin, Rosemary McMillen, James Mercer, James Millar, Peter Mooney, Leslie Nicholl, Jake Pakenham, Jan Powel, Denise Robinson, Duncan Wallace and Frederick Woodhead

The exhibition continues until Saturday 21st December 2013.

Back in Town (For a While)

This month the Engine Room Gallery welcomed guest curator Chris Caldwell from the Tom Caldwell Gallery who selected work by six artists for our current exhibition Back in Town (For a While).

James Cahill (painting) & Bob Sloan (sculpture)

The exhibition features work by Malcom Bennett, Patrick Palmer, William Blair, Derek Menary and James Cahill, along with sculpture by Bob Sloan.

William Blair, Derek Menary (painting) & Bob Sloan (sculpture)

We had a fantastic turnout for the opening as part of Late Night Art, and were delighted to see a few new faces who came to support the artists.

Patrick Palmer (painting) & Bob Sloan (sculpture)

Malcolm Bennett

Derek Menary

We also had the pleasure of welcoming another new face to the Engine Room Gallery. Our new manager John Scovell started this week and hung the show with Cliff and Chris. Please call in and say hello to John soon!

John Scovell, Engine Room Manager, having a chat at the opening of Back in Town (For a While)

Everything that Everybody Always Wanted to See

The Engine Room Gallery is currently showing an exhibition of works on paper in collaboration with the Fenderesky Gallery .

The exhibition features a fantastic selection of small works which were selected and curated by the Engine Room's longtime friend and collaborative partner, Jamshid Fenderesky. 

The artists featured are:

Sophie Aghajanian, Jim Allen, Daniel Ariosto, Gregor Pozzo Berenger, Natalia Black, Cliff Brooks, Chung Eun Mo, David Crone, Michael Cullen, Charles Cullen, Fionnuala D’Arcy, Alacoque Davey, Diarmuid Delargy, Micky Donnelly, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Felim Egan, David Feeley, Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, Barbara Freeman, Graham Gingles, Lisa Gingles, K.K. Godsee, Richard Gorman, Alan Graham, Terry Gravett, Patrick Hall, Michael Hart, Willie Heron, Tony Hill, Tjibbe Hooghiemstra, Ronnie Hughes, Peter Hutchinson, Sharon Kelly, Clement McAleer, Linda McBurney, Paddy McCann, Stephen McKenna, Sean McSweeney, James Millar, Alfonso Monreal, Helen Paisley, Anna O. Pappenheim, Bill Penney, Janet Preston, Gary Shaw, John Noel Smith, Veronica Wallis, Charles Walsh, Martin Wedge and Astrid Werner

We were delighted that so many people came out on a cold wet Thursday for the opening, and were pleased to see some new faces on the Late Night Art trail. The exhibition continues until Saturday 2 November.

Creative Exchange presents Art in the Eastside

Myra Jago, All this has happened before and it will all happen again

The Engine Room Gallery is currently exhibiting a selection of the original artwork submitted for the Art in the Eastside billboards project, the largest outdoor exhibition in Ireland which takes place annually across East Belfast. Much of the artwork has been created specially with East Belfast in mind, and reflects the social, cultural and political diversity that makes this area so unique.

We had a fantastic turn out for the opening reception on Thursday 5 September, which was preceded by a walking tour of the billboards led by The Forum for Alternative Belfast. The exhibition continues until Saturday 28 September.

The exhibition features work by: Colin Davis, Liam Campbell, Valeria Giannandrea, Ruth Moore, Aoife McGee, Myra Jago, Gerry Gleason, Joanne McMahon, Lauren Osbourne, Ray Duncan, Karen Day Hutchinson, Helen Paisley, David Fox, Breandan Clarke, Colin Darke, Barbara Craig, James Robert Moore, James Millar, Clinton Kirkpatrick, Victor Sloan, Alice Maher, Colin McGookin, Deirdre Robb, Jennifer Brown, Brooke-Valentine Menown, Ian Fleming, Katie Brown, Angela Anderson, Victoria J Dean, Ciara O'Malley, Patricia Vallely, Susan McWilliam, Michael Hart, Derick Hegarty, Olywn Colgan, Ramona Burke, Aisling O'Beirn, Emma Donaldson, George Robb, Ivan Frew, Jim Melin, Lisa Ballard, Robert JE Simpson, Heather J Ferguson, Patrick Colhoun, Maura O'Rourke, Rachel McBride, Aidan Butler, Stephen Millar, Andrew Haire, Margaret Woods, Mike Connor, Rachel Coote and Lesley Cherry.

Exhibition of New Work by Mary Martin

The Engine Room Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition of new work by Mary Martin, inspired by her travels to the Algarve in Southern Portugal.

 "The strangeness of this beautiful shore was both familiar and foreign to me. Walking along the rocky cliff tops reminded me of scrambling across the hills of south Armagh as a child. The pounding ocean has carved its mark into the towering sandstone cliffs creating holes and cavities in weak spots. I am interested in the ambiguous nature of holes. They can be somewhere to hide – a place of refuge or they can represent the void, the abyss [black holes]. They occur regularly on the rock-face and in the shadow of bridges. The shore is an interface that shifts as land and sea resist each other."

"The work developed from drawing the lines that scored and shaped the vertical face of the soaring cliffs and rock stacks that stand like the walls of a fortress above the restless water. The formation of cracks and crevasses in the rock modulates on a different timescale to the powerful ocean with its rhythmic tides and lashing waves. The splendour of the cliffs reminded me of a few lines from Colm Toibin’s book The Master, ‘It was easier to be old here, [he thought]; no colour was simple, nothing was fresh, even the sunlight itself seemed to fall and linger in ways which had been honoured by time.’ The alterations in colours reflect the mood of the hour, the seasons, the time of the day in this elemental landscape."

Mary was born in south Armagh in 1962 and studied at the University of Ulster. She has since worked as artist-in-residence at the University of Ulster Print Department and was awarded the Turner Prize for Drawing at the University of Ulster in 2007. She has exhibited in Ireland, Canada and Bulgaria and her work is held in private and public collection including the Department of the Environment.

The exhibition continues until Saturday 31 August 2013.

Liam de Frinse's Eco Art's Lab at Minnowburn

The continuous stream of visitors to the Gallery boasting of their strolls in the "glorious" summer sunshine had me bursting to escape for an art adventure of my own. The opportunity presented itself on Wednesday when I happened upon Liam de Frisne at his new studio, the Eco Art's Lab - located next to the River Lagan at Minnowburn. Nestled amidst the trees, the Eco Art's Lab acts as a hub for the Lagan Love Trail - a seven mile 'happening' that weaves Ireland's longest love poem along the river's towpath from the Island Arts Centre in Lisburn ending at Shaw’s Bridge.The Love Trail is an ever-evolving project as visitors are encouraged to contribute and add their own story to the work. Liam further explains this on his CreativeChangeNI blog,

"The philosophy of the Lagan Love Trail is about giving and exchanging resources so that everybody owns it and nobody owns it thus enhancing our well being on this small planet for such a small time we are on it. Sharing the love, Joy, mystery and passion for life."

Indeed, the work is growing day by day and it is transforming just as quickly. I hope you enjoy the photographs taken at The Art's Lab but it is certainly worth visiting the site yourself to truly grasp the breadth of this beautiful project.

 

more photos after the jump.....

Summer Exhibition 2013

Patrick Colhoun, A Triptych of Cohorts (Collaboration with Jill Black), black ceramic sculpture with glaze and hand painted finish

Now in its 17th year, the Summer exhibition at The Engine Room Gallery is driven by a desire to include as many artists as possible in order to present an accurate cross-section of art today. The open-submission show will display work from more than 40 artists using photography, sculpture, printmaking, painting and installation. 

18th July - 3rd August  

                            Opening Reception Thursday 18th July 7.30 - 9pm

This year's artists include:
Patrick Colhoun, Kevin Miller, Colin Davis, Jack Packenham, James Millar, Brian Ballard, Lisa Ballard, John Macormac, Tristan Barry, Joanne Jamison, Denise Robinson, Rex Dixon, Cheryl Bleakley, Ben Groves, Leslie Nicholl, Laura McGuire, Ray Duncan, Aleck Knox, Jan Powell, Stephen Shaw, Fiona Craig, Dale Mawhinney, Des Edwards, Fred Woodhead, Ricky Darling, Lyn Megaw, Marcus Blockson