Belfast Trip 2013

My day of events started off with a nice coach ride down to Banbridge, were we then entered the F.E. McWilliams Gallery. This was a very spacious and interesting building that would fit very well within the modern and contemporary designs of today.

 We first of went into what was the outside section of the gallery and this contained some different sculptures from a broad range of sculptors.

A couple of which I seen were Laura Gibson’s “Bleacher’s Watchtowers” in which she made from a canvas material and then it had this interesting steel structure forming and holding it together. Along with that the piece also was around three metres high and had the “original” sounds of that period in history.

Laura Gibson’s “Bleacher’s Watchtowers”

Shane Donaldson was also exhibiting his piece of work that was this giant sphere/cube shaped piece on these cast iron “train like” wheels. It contained around 7500 or more/less steel nails that all moulded together for him in this interesting way, and really caught us all by surprise.

We also then took a look into the replica workshop that would of all been modelled around McWilliams’ own workshop. With all the replica and real original piece of bits and bobs that he would of needed day to day. This was very interesting and gave us an insight into just what he would have been working in when creating his pieces of work.

Within the studio itself we looked around a vast number of paintings that were all to do with the “understanding Cubinism” movement if I remember correctly. It unfortunately did not allow photographs and it was still great to see all the Irish artists with their great talents and pieces of work through the years right in front of our eyes.

Some Examples of F.E. Mcwilliam's sculptural work

We then hopped onto the bus and head to the Ulster museum were we then saw around its sculpture section with all its various amounts of pieces of work from various people. I then looked through an exhibition that was being held called “Reflections” that looked into all sorts of different types of old and interesting jewellery and clothing. This was a very good section for people who really liked fashion and also wire/jewellery work.

Just down from the museum itself we also went into the Queens University that was a very old and intricate building that is found in a almost “outer ring” of Belfast, but not too far from the centre of the city. 

This place in turn was holding an artist’s work called Colin Davidson and his exhibition called “Between The Words” and he really amazed me. His paint skills were that of pure excellence, and I am really in awe over his pieces of work of certain people that we all know very well from TV, Film and the Arts in general.

After that, we then decided to head further into Belfast near the Ulster University that deals a lot in the arts and different subjects. This was a very good experience to see the university in its entire entirety. There was also a small “Gallery” that had some installations within that were really quite interesting. (See “A Pattern Language” booklet for more info).

From there we then ventured into one of the places we could go and that was to a place called “The MAC”. This is a very contemporary building that I have been to before and really been impressed by when I headed to see the Andy Warhol exhibition last year.

Some sculptural work by Karl Burke, Maud Cotter, and Ursula Burke were there and these were very strange pieces indeed that contained a lot of personal and in-depth thought process. We spent that much time looking at the pieces in the MAC that we had little time left so we ventured on over to gain supplies from Bradbury Graphics which was a great store indeed. They had almost everything from a pen to a giant brush, and I really am glad I went over in the last bit of time I had in Belfast.

Over all I think the trip was a great success and I cannot wait to go back again and see the different exhibitions through the years and always gain a good in-sight into the arts of today and the future. It was a very fun learning experience that really opened my eyes to endless possibilities of Medias and future career choices.