WITH a choice of thirteen different gallery openings last Thursday for Late Night Art it was best to focus on just a few and go back at another time. It’s always good to have a new location open even if it’s temporary so the Uphold exhibition at 35DP – 35 Donegall Place– was first on the list.
A great use of empty space in the city centre, at one point it was the old third floor tourist information centre. The escalators have gone as well as the nineties fit-out to reveal an enormous industrial space which will temporarily be a gallery. It once again demonstrates that if you leave the artists to get on with it then new ventures blossom. Uphold is a community Interest company connected to Household, which, if your memory goes back far enough, instigated all the artists in the Ormeau area to turn their houses into galleries for a couple of years. Noticing that there is a large fleet of artist not represented by galleries locally, they have set up an online platform to act as a selling space for some of this talent.
The Exhibition in 35DP is the first time they have spilled their selling arm out into a physical space and while online art buying is a multi-million-pound business, the physical reaction to seeing art in the flesh can prompt purchases, especially when you are less familiar with the artists’ work. For this exhibition they have included a few artist designers creating in response to themes of this year’s Outburst Festival. Prices range mostly in the twenty quid to six hundred price range with a lot around the hundred quid mark. Illustrating further the compassion that artists have, some are sharing any profit with charities such as the Welcome organisation and Women’s aid.
Ray Duncan at Gallery
Some of the exhibitors I have mentioned in previous articles, such as Helena Hamilton, Aisling O’Beirn, Susan Hughes, Array Collective and Miguel Martin, but what struck me on going to the opening is the scale of the art, which is always difficult to gauge visually online. And, yes, people were in fact buying on the opening night
Uphold new collections are at 35DP Donegall Place until November 20, open Wednesday to Friday 10pm to 4pm; Saturday noon to 4pm; Sunday 1pm to 4pm. You can shop at upholdart.co.uk
Flax Arts Studios for Emerging Artists (FASE) invited everyone along to the unveiling of their box programme while suggesting that if you were not there “it’s okay to pretend that you were” knowing that many an exhibition gets hyped by word of mouth and gossip. Artists such as Graham Gingles and Peter Richards, who both use boxes in their practice, be it a pinhole camera or an intricate box of horror and delight, exhibited alongside the crew in Connswater shopping centre’s Platform Arts, who brought along a filled box declaring Death to the Arts
Flax Arts Project Space at 7 North Street is open Thursday to Saturday from 2pm to 5pm until November 12.
While I usually have a rule of mentioning no Christmas exhibitions until December, for some reason this year I don’t mind mentioning the C word in November as Craft NI have launched their Big Bauble Christmas extravaganza showcasing everything from glass mistletoe and ceramic reindeers to embroidered bells – all made by local craftspeople. Customers collect the craftspeople’s work and if, like me, you only buy one a year you become the proud owner of a miniature seasonal craft collection.
Big Bauble Christmas showcase is at Craft NI 115-117 Royal Avenue and open retail hours until Christmas Eve. www.craftni.org
While painting sometimes gets short shift in terms of representation, the Engine Room Gallery always holds the baton proudly for this art form. Drogheda-based Patrick Conyngham fills the first floor gallery with his layered abstracts while Eiham Hemment oozes out of the second floor. Painting lovers will enjoy the next exhibition coming up at the Mac New Exits, celebrating ten years of painting shows and focusing on some of the painting talent to come out of the Belfast school of art BA and MA courses. The Sunken Gallery will host a series of talks and discussions for the duration of the exhibition but you will have to wait until December for that.
Hattie Godfrey – fresh back from performing in Glasgow – brought her particular form of art magic to Platform Arts on Saturday. Francesca Bondi of Gallery 545 launches this week her ‘Art500’ Online at www.gallery545.com – private viewings in person at Gallery 545’s office at Blick Studios, 51 Malone Road.
Don’t forget the Belfast Film Festival is on until November 12 and Outburst Queer Arts Festival runs from November 11 to 19 and if you need to get out of the house on Sunday, November 12, Duncairn Art Centre is open for their free super Sunday from 11am to 3pm featuring live music, free arts and crafts workshops for kids and freely available Sunday papers.
A word of advice: It does get busy so get there early to secure your place.
