BELFAST.- Paul Gaffney is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at the University of Ulster, Belfast. His research is aimed at developing a meditative approach to landscape photography, and explores how the act of image making can enable and disrupt a sense of connection with one’s surroundings. Gaffney’s exhibition at
Belfast Exposed features work from a number of recent studies related to this research theme.
Drawing on Arnold Berleant’s theory of a ‘participatory approach’ to landscape, in which the artist, environment and viewer are considered to be in continuous dialogue with each other, Gaffney proposes to communicate an experience of immersion in nature to the viewer. He invites the viewer’s active participation in this experimental and discursive exhibition, which will unfold and evolve over the course of six weeks.
Gaffney will be present in the gallery throughout the exhibition run, conducting experiments in print and display processes. A printer has been installed in the space, which allows the artist to print work on site and visibly demonstrate the decision-making that underpins exhibition planning and development. As the weeks progress, the artist will apply different approaches to printing, framing, mounting, projecting and illuminating the work. Various sequencing and editing techniques will be utilised as a means in which to tease out the relationships between the images, thus enabling a layered narrative to emerge.
The key processes and changes described above will be communicated via social media so that visitors will know when each is due to happen. The audience will be invited to give feedback, and the exhibition will also be framed by a series of artist’s talks and critical discussions with graduate and post graduate photography students, community groups and Belfast Exposed training course participants.
The exhibition opened on 3 September with the artist in conversation with Belfast Exposed’s curator. There will be a closing event during the last week, in the form of a BX photo book club where Gaffney will launch a handmade limited-edition publication, which will be produced during the exhibition.
Paul Gaffney’s previous series ‘We Make the Path by Walking,’ explored the idea of long distance walking as a form of meditation and personal transformation. The project was released in 2013 as a self-published photobook, and was nominated for the Photobook Award 2013 at the 6th International Photobook Festival in Kassel, Germany and shortlisted for the European Publishers Award for Photography. The work was presented as solo exhibitions at Oliver Sears Gallery (Dublin), Flowers Gallery (London), Ffotogallery (Cardiff) and PhotoIreland Festival 2013 (Dublin), and in several group shows in the United States, UK, South Africa, Ireland, Italy and China.
Features Gallery
The work of Jill Quigley (1981, Donegal, Ireland) is located between photography and installation. Her recent work has been concerned with the representation of rural Irish life and landscape and disrupting traditional approaches and narratives to this subject. In her acclaimed work, Cottages of Quigley’s Point, she made and photographed a series of playful interventions within abandoned cottages in Donegal. Rural Fluorescent focuses on the presence of high-vis materials and fluorescent colours within rural environments in Ireland.
Jill completed an MFA in Photography at the University of Ulster in 2013. Her photography has been published in the British Journal of Photography and as part of the Where We Are series of photo books. Recent exhibitions include Schau Fotofestival in Dortmund, Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, Sirius Arts Centre in Cork, Format Festival in Derby, Belfast Photo Festival and The Photographers' Gallery in London. Jill will be represented by Belfast Exposed at Unseen Photo Fair Amsterdam 2015.
