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Aisling O'Beirn's We Lose Sight of the Night invites us to examine the night sky, the impacts of light pollution and the importance of darkness and our relentless use of materials, the detritus of a consumer society critiquing the unsustainable production of yet more stuff.
The Weight of Light brings together the practices of Conor McFeely and Pascale Steven, artists who live together and occasionally work together, whose practices have been influenced by their shared, and occasionally different outlooks on art and living.
The Shake is an ambitious art project by Khaled Barakeh, a Syrian multidisciplinary conceptual artist, activist, and cultural director based in Berlin. It takes its stepping-off point from Maurice Harron's iconic public sculpture, Hands Across the Divide. Erected in 1992, in the doubly named City of Derry-Londonderry, it symbolises "the letting go of the past and reconciliation between both sides of the political divide during The Troubles."
The diverse artworks in this exhibition were brought together under the title mother tongue, a term that evokes our relationship to language, and our (dis)connection to the land, belonging, family and our own bodies.
'someone decides, hawk or dove' is a commissioned work by artist Niamh McCann as part of the programme for ART:2023, a Decade Of Centenaries supported by The Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
Red-to-red by Sharon Kelly was developed over the period of the artist's ACNI Fellowship at the British School at Rome. Kelly originally commenced the residency in January 2020, but this was interrupted by the pandemic. She returned January - March 2023 to complete the Fellowship.
Midnight Feast by Louise Wallace produces work that is deliberately provocative, utilising a palette of lush colour to create images that draw on abstraction and Surrealism to transform the suburban into scenes that hover between the familiar and the uncanny.
This was of Mueck’s work in Ireland and brings together seven of his key works including Dead Dad, 1997 and his monumental work In Bed, 2005.
A powerful exhibition of Mueck's meticulously sculpted figures, from mini to mammoth, that act as psychological reflections of the human condition.
The exhibition showcased the work we co-designed with our Associate Partners who work to combat some of society’s most pressing issues and inequalities – Alliance for Choice, Action Mental Health, The Rainbow Project, Extern and Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR). Our ethos is to reflect current approaches towards integrating collective activity and making community empowerment more visible in the art world.
New Exits: 10 Years of Painting Shows.
Claire Barclay is a visual artist recognised for producing large-scale sculptural installations created in response to specific contexts. Her works are immersive sensory experiences that explore our interactions with materials and functionality, by combining formal elements that evoke thinking around the “psychological relationships between human beings and the objects that we live with and produce.”
Ronnie Hughes is one of Ireland’s most dynamic abstract painters. Hughes’ elegant and poised works are executed with complex technical skill yet retain a lightness of touch. While his finished paintings display a diversity of styles, at heart they share a common concern with the lived experience, and what Hughes has described as “the beauty, the fragility and the violence of being.”
But this material... is the first significant institutional presentation of Anne Tallentire’s work since her career survey This, and Other Things 1999-2010 at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
The fourth and final poetic response to Peter Liversidge's exhibition, Sign Paintings for Belfast, by local poet Marcella Prince titled, In Good Faith.
The third of the poetic responses to Peter Liversidge's exhibition, Sign Paintings for Belfast, by local poet Dane Holt titled, It Was Then.
The second of the poetic responses to Peter Liversidge's exhibition, Sign Paintings for Belfast, by local poet Sacha White titled, The Weather and the Weather.
The first of the poetic responses to Peter Liversidge's exhibition, Sign Paintings for Belfast, by local poet Matthew Rice titled, The Eventful Truth.
Alex, Amelie and Evie Brighton tell us about their chalk art piece which started life as pavement art to show their support for the NHS.
The Quarantine Quilt is exhibited in our Tall Gallery as part of 'In A Rainbow Of Coalitions'. The quilt was created by a community of artists, building kinship across isolation, and supporting solidarity by collecting each other's stories in the days of lockdown 2020.
As we complete our series of short interviews, Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. In the final video of the series, we hear from Stephanie Tanney, MFA Fine Art graduate, sharing about her work, Order That Protects Disorder, which can be experienced in the Tall Gallery.
As we continue in our series of short interviews, Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series, we hear from Katherine McBride, BA Fine Art graduate about her work, Let There Be Light, which can be experienced in the Sunken Gallery.
As we continue in our series of short interviews, Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series, we hear from Dominic McKeown, MFA Fine Art graduate, sharing about his work, Resist Release, which you can experience in the Tall Gallery.
As we continue in our series of short interviews, Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series, we hear from Nollaig Molloy, MFA Fine Art graduate, discussing her work in the exhibition; an18 minute long film work titled 'Worth Your Salt' and two photographic pieces that stem from the project research.
In a series of short interviews, our Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series we hear from Josephine McGeown, BA Fine Art graduate, describing her work, The Birthday Party.
In a series of short interviews, our Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibitied work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series we hear from Vasiliki Stasinaki, MFA Fine Art graduate, describing her work, It Hurts my Elbows.
In a series of short interviews, our Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series we hear from Edward Boyle, BA Fine Art graduate, describing his work, Ballymanus 43.
In a series of short interviews, our Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Next in the series we hear from Fiona Nicholson, BA Fine Art graduate, describing her work, 58 Years.
In a series of short interviews, our Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Hear from Saffron Monks-Smith, MFA Fine Art graduate about her work and future hopes.
In a series of short interviews, our Ulster University Graduate Guides give some insights into their own exhibited work and their hopes for the future. Hear from Matthew Wilson about his work, All The Things We Couldn't Say.
Mark's exhibition, Songs and the Soil, across all three of the MAC’s galleries, will represent the most significant presentation of Mark Garry’s work to date, developed specifically for the MAC over the last two and a half years.
On Refusal: Representation & Resistance in Contemporary American Art is a group exhibition across all three of the MAC’s galleries exploring ideas of representation, refusal and resistance in the work of a number of contemporary American artists.
Niamh McCann: La Perruque was the first major solo exhibition of work in Northern Ireland from the Dublin-based artist and explored many different reference points, distilling them into a kind of sculptural poetry.
For Correale’s first exhibition in Ireland, the MAC presents They will say I killed them, a major new film work produced by Careof in partnership with the MAC. They will say I killed them is the result of an in-depth investigation into Italian cinema from the 1950s to the 1980s, that for different reasons were left on shelves in the form of screenplays, or filed away in the minds of directors, without ever becoming films because of censorship.
This exhibition brings together a major new body of work by the Belfast based painter Mark McGreevy. McGreevy’s practice has long been celebrated for offering possible windows into other imaginary worlds and distorted realities, creating visual conundrums that imply quizzical and intimate overviews of imagery and speculative spaces.
Rationalism on Set: Glamour and Modernity in 1930s Italian Cinema explores a little-known period of Italian cinematic history, highlighting the strong Modernist influence apparent in the set designs created for a number of romantic comedies during the inter-war years. The photographs in the exhibition are primarily sourced from the Cineteca Nazionale, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Rome), the Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Turin) and the RIBA Collections.
The Land That… is a video and mixed-media project by Frances Hegarty & Andrew Stones, based on their collaborative engagement with a ten-acre plot of land in Co. Donegal. Ongoing for over five years, the work considers this land from the artists’ combined personal perspectives, and as a miniature territory in a discussion about “Land/s” in a wider anthropological, cultural and political sense.
Christopher James Burns (b. 1988) is a Belfast based artist whose practice draws upon the particular context in which he lives. Working predominantly in sculpture and installation, Burns explores the complex relationship between memory, place and the construction of identity, with his works often challenging the meaning and value of the objects around us; particularly those that purport to commemorate or communicate our past.
Every Thought There Ever Was is a major new touring exhibition by Lindsay Seers. Incorporating industrial robotics in conjunction with a three-screen video projection, the work is shaped by philosophical ideas and scientific research concerned with the phenomenon of consciousness.
SCAPEGOATING PICTURES for Belfast is the first significant presentation of work by Gilbert and George in Ireland since their attention-grabbing exhibition at Ormeau Baths Gallery in 1999.
Curated by artist John Walter, Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness brings together international artists and architects to explore the nature of visual awkwardness. 'Shonky' is a Hayward Touring exhibition developed in partnership with the MAC, Belfast; DCA, Dundee and Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre.
'A Dream and an Argument' represents a major new body of work by Edinburgh-born, Belfast based artist Dougal McKenzie. It brings together key elements of McKenzie’s practice: an interest in history and storytelling through images, and an investigation into whether it is possible to represent these as ‘memory’ in painting.
This is the first major institutional exhibition by Belfast based artist Bill Saunders, who works primarily in sculpture. In this exhibition - Side Steps These Ferried Measures Rise - Saunders considers the very site where artwork is made — the profound “thinking space” that is the studio — as a source of inspiration for his work.
Andrew Mummery is the Curator of Carol Rhodes: Survey. This is the first solo presentation of Carol Rhodes’ work in Ireland, and her most extensive exhibition since the mid-career retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, in 2007.
A major new exhibition guest curated by Manuela Pacella that brings together several multi-layered projects across a range of media by Italian artists Riccardo Giacconi, Invernomuto and Luca Trevisani.
The first institutional solo exhibition in the UK and Ireland from Dublin-based artist Barbara Knezevic. This exhibition begins with a proposition. What if this is the last thing, the final material to be pulled out of the ground, the final piece of stuff that has not already been purposed by humans?
For this major exhibition in our Upper Gallery, British artist Keith Wilson further develops his longstanding investigation into the cultural status of sculpture, considering how ideas develop in the private sphere of the artist’s studio.
Double Act: Art & Comedy explored the importance of comedy in shaping meaning, and how it can help us negotiate the complexities of everyday life. Curated by David Campbell and Mark Durden in association with Bluecoat, Liverpool.
Mariah Garnett: Other and Father was the first solo exhibition in the UK and Ireland of work by the LA-based artist which mixed documentary, narrative and experimental film-making practices.
Helen O'Leary: The Shelf Life of Facts was a new site-specific commission for our Upper Gallery and concerned itself with the uncertainty present in any economic downturn or change and in the rupture between external and internal life.
This work represents Barbara Freeman’s first film project. It follows the course of the River Bann in Northern Ireland with a montage of images and sounds.
This exhibition by Paddy McCann presented a major new body of work developed over the past two years and marked the beginning of a new direction in the artist’s practice, exploring new ideas in gesture and scale and methods of working with the medium of paint.
Seminal British artist Stuart Brisley discusses his exhibition at the MAC in 2015 entitled 'Headwinds'.
Kevin Henderson has primarily used actions and performances to express and explore ideas within his artistic practice, using the writings of authors and artists as starting points for ideas, or frameworks to which ideas can be related.
Behind the scenes with artist Colin Darke as he talks about his 2014 exhibition at the MAC, titled 'Grotesque Mediocrity'.
In recent years London-based artist Peter Liversidge has become known for his polymathic approach to exhibition making, inundating curators with pages of proposals which are usually sent via the post.
Behind the scenes with artist, Graham Gingles as he talks about his exhibition 'At times like these men were wishing they were all kinds of insects' - a new solo exhibition at the MAC presented in 2014.
Susan Connolly presents a series of new works which explore the physical qualities of paint extending our understanding of contemporary painting.
Richard Gorman has spent the past twenty years refining his vision of, and his fluency, in paint. He has chiseled out a compositional language and tonal spectrum that are his own. He insists that his paintings mean no more or no less than what they are.
We at the MAC are exceedingly proud to present an exhibition of capable artworks by the notable hand of the celebrated American, Kara Elizabeth Walker, Negress.
