Category: News

The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is facilitating a virtual visit to Joy Gerrard’s studio space at QSS on Thursday 4th February @ 1pm over Zoom. There will be an opportunity to view some of Joy’s recent work and to ask her questions about her practice and inspirations. Visit: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/lunchtime-studio-visit-with-joy-gerrard-arha-tickets-138786836163 to book your ticket. Joy Gerrard lives…

To mark the beginning of a New Year and look forward to an era post-COVID-19, the Centre Culturel Irlandais has commissioned 40 artists to address the world with their reflections on the times in which we live: choreographers, theatre makers, writers, musicians, visual artists and filmmakers convey their values, their preoccupations, their anger and frustrations…

Congratulations to QSS artist Jane Rainey on receipt of the K+M Evans Painting Prize (for Icy Moon) at the RHA’s 190th Annual Exhibition. Jane has shown work across Ireland. Recent solo shows include The Horizon Is Never Still, Molesworth Gallery, 2019 and Ridges, Rathfarnham Castle, 2018. Group shows include: VUE Art Fair, RHA, 2019; Futures Series…

Congratulations to QSS artist Jennifer Trouton on winning the Watercolour Prize at the Royal Ulster Academy’s 139th Annual Exhibition. The prize was sponsored by the Errigle Inn Belfast and selected by this year’s adjudicator, Glenn Patterson. Jennifer’s work has featured in group exhibitions both nationally and internationally since graduating from the University of Ulster in…

QSS is delighted to announce that Belfast School of Art graduate Kwok L Tsui has been awarded our 2020-21 Graduate Bursary. The bursary takes the form of free studio provision (1 December 2020 – 31st August 2021) and aims to relieve an emerging artist from financial pressure whilst easing the transition from university to professional…

QSS artist Amanda Coogan took part in Visual Carlow’s celebration of Culture Night 2020 on Friday 18th September. This celebration, entitled ‘When I’, took the form of a 30-minute programme of newly commissioned works and performances for screen, bringing together some of Ireland’s leading artists. Amanda’s piece, ‘Above the Starry Canopy’, was a collaboration with…

The MAC is exhibiting a selection of work from the Ulster University BA and MFA Fine Art Class of 2020, across their three galleries until 11th Ocober 2020. Included in the class of 2020 is QSS artist and MFA graduate Vasiliki Stasinaki. To hear about Vasiliki’s work click on the video below. You can also pre-book your…

Installation for David Haughey’s exhibition ‘It Crystallises into a Monad’ is now complete. Don’t forget to book your ticket and time slot to attend the preview tomorrow (3 September 2020) via eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/david-haughey-it-crystallises-into-a-monad-tickets-117511727741 We look forward to seeing you there!

PREVIEW: 3 SEPTEMBER, 18:00-20:00 (to book a time slot click HERE) It Crystallises Into a Monad takes its point of departure from the recreation of an unattributed zoological painting, originally made in 1776. The video projection work presented at QSS Gallery One in Belfast during September 2020 acquired form through research of the painting and…

“According to Cambridge Dictionary, a muse is ’a person, or an imaginary being or force that gives someone ideas and helps them to write, paint, or make music.’ For my last collection I thought of offering 9 pieces to “mirror” the 9 Muses-goddesses in Greek mythology. There is no specific inspiration assigned to each piece but hopefully looking through…

“This week’s selection started from the idea of finding a focus in an image that has several visual layers, divided to foreground and background, each requiring a portion of our attention in order to fully understand it. As the collection grew it became a matter of being able to cut thorough the layers and reconsider…

“This week is all about how we look at each other and the expectations we keep within that gaze. Some of the pieces I selected hold a sense of awkwardness towards the viewer, others challenge our attempt to assign a narrow truth to their expression or meaning.” Moran Been-noon List of work: 01. Rachel Lawell:…

“This week’s collection was co-curated with Aoife Donnellan @aoifedonnellan. We started this collection by looking at work that highlights the sensation of individual isolation alongside regimented togetherness. We selected pieces that engage with this conflict, born out of the human condition. We referenced Duchamp’s Fresh Widow (1920) in the title as a note on the…

“The Phi Phenomenon describes the sense of motion perceived by us when visuals appear in an alternation at high frequency. It’s important in animation, for example, when a frequent enough sequence is essentially viewed as movement. This is one of the ideas that inspired the theory of Gestalt, which considers the whole as different from…

“I worked on this week’s collection as if I was reading a graphic novel. I followed a shape, a colour, a feeling from one frame to the next, not knowing what would be the next step of the narrative.” Moran Been-noon List of work: 01. Dan Ferguson: Soaked (above image), oil on panel, 30 x…

“I treated this week as a proposal for paying attention. The work selected has an almost fantastical aesthetics on a first look, but a double take shows the details that make up the composition. Each piece has two stories, and our consideration is required.” Moran Been-noon List of work: 01. Hannah Clegg – ‘Three Hundred…

“The idea for this week’s collection came from a photo of a curator posing in the gallery space among the installed work, posing in different ways that mirror or copy the shapes and gestures in the art. This made me think of “mirror neurones”, which fire in our brain when we see a certain action…

“I started this week with looking at images of heads and thinking of the phrase “heavy is the head that wears the crown”. While this reference stayed behind in the actual work selection, the work I selected has a certain weight, or gravity, to it. In the process the shape of the body became relevant…

Today QSS is launching a collaboration with Moran Been-noon (@batinzedesert) showcasing collections of the members’ work on our various channels. Moran approached us with the idea of curating these little collections earlier this month and we are delighted to be able to work together to showcase the great work done at QSS even though our…

‘The Fews’ is an experimental short film by QSS artist Éanna Mac Cana. The piece focuses on painter (and the artist’s father), Paddy McCann, who is in the midst of creating a new body of work.   Owing to the spectrum of colour his father uses in his painted works, Éanna chose to record in…