EYES UP – Wed 21st Oct at PIGMENT SPACE. 6.30pm – late. Includes past and present MFA students Aoife, Ben, Madison, Kyle and Micheal.

The Drawing Journal. QSS. Opens Thursday 15 October, 6 – 8:30pm. (Inc Joanne Proctor MFA 2025)

Mary McIntyre & Robert Anderson In Conversation with Ciara Hickey at The MAC on Wednesday 14th October at 6:30 p.m.

Join artists Mary McIntyre & Robert Anderson in conversation with writer and curator Ciara Hickey to explore themes of absence, the ambiguity of objects and the unstable life of the photographic image present in their current exhibition, ‘Reconstructions: A Room for Mike Kelley’.

At The MAC on Wednesday 14th October at 6:30 p.m.

t

and this is the ticket booking link:

https://themaclive.com/event/reconstructions-mary-mcintyre-robert-anderson-in-conversation-with-ciara-hickey

Artist Talk: WEEK 4. Susan Hughes. Conor Lecture Theatre Thursday 15th Oct. 1.15pm. ALL WELCOME!

(profile pic. with the sound system.  Photo by Kate Donaldson)

Susan Hughes’ practice spans video, sculpture and installation.

She is seduced by storytelling in Irish culture and uses her fiddle playing as a bartering tool to gain access to stories. Hughes, from Belfast, graduated with a distinction in her MFA in 2021 from the University of Ulster. She was a participant of the Freelands Foundation Artists’ Programme (2022-2024) and is a studio holder at Orchid Studios. She attended the Centre Culturel Irlandais residency in Paris (2023). Hughes has received funding from the Northern Irish and Irish Arts Councils on several occasions.

Artist Talk: WEEK 3. Benjamin Senior. Conor Lecture Theatre Thursday 8th Oct. 1.15pm. ALL WELCOME!

Thursday 8th October

1.15pm in the Conor Lecture Theatre

Benjamin Senior

“At the start I approach my work as a social realist – walking the streets, making daily observations of multicultural London. However once work is underway I approach the painting as a formalist, constructing the painting to achieve an abstract unity. Could this be called Social Formalism? I’m drawn to commonplace scenes that we might pass through on autopilot. By painting it, I’m interested in finding the abstract and unfamiliar beauty of that scene. After the viewer has seen my painting, I hope their vision of the world is coloured by it.”

https://www.benjaminsenior.com

MFA mini-talks (Part B). WEEK 2. Conor Lecture Theatre Thursday 1st Oct. 1.15pm. ALL WELCOME!

MFA Fine Art 2nd Year (Part B)
Artist Talks
Conor Lecture Theatre 1.15 pm  – 3.15 pm. Belfast School of Art. BA-01-009

(Images clockwise: Ben Cole, Surbhi Jangra, Anna McKinstry, Jonathan Pratt, Janice Cherry)

As is now a tradition near the start of their 2nd semester, the MFA 2nd year students present their series of Artist Mini-Talks.  All Welcome!

Group B: Week 2. Thursday 1st Oct
Ben Cole
Surbhi Jangra 
Anna McKinstry
Janice Cherry 
Jonathan Pratt

The MFA Fine Art Course was founded in 1979. Over the last 40 years, more than 400 emerging artists, 23 staff and over 270 visiting artists have exerted their individual and collective influence on the shape and direction of this program of study. The course’s vision remains as radical and cutting edge as it was in 1979 – asserting networked relevancy, criticality and quality in today’s contemporary art world.

Its current final year students will introduce us to their practice as they take the MFA into the next stage of its history. 

https://mfabelfast.wordpress.com

Painter’s Table. Henry Ward and Dougal McKenzie. Arcade Studios. Private view 6-9pm. 1st. Oct 2026.

Screenshot

Opening on Thursday 1st October at 6pm, Arcade Studios and Gallery presents new paintings and sculptures by Dougal McKenzie and Henry Ward:

“We worked on this over the summer, talking about things like Philip Guston, Roy Oxlade, Hairy Who and the Chicago Imagists, Hanna-Barbera cartoons and Wile E. Coyote. A conversation between two painters about the things that enter into our paintings: objects, images, jokes, materials, memories, influences and the work of other artists. Philip Guston’s table became a starting point for a shared investigation into what surrounds painting, what prompts it, and what happens when those things move between conversation, object and image.”

https://arcadestudiosbelfast.com

Emerging Artists 2026. ArtisAnn Gallery. Ends 3rd Oct.

Emerging Artists 2026

Emerging Artists 2026

An exhibition by recent graduates: 

Áine Crawford (BA 2026)

Holly Hooks (BA 2026)

Hayley McGinnis (BA 2026)

Winifred Otowa (MFA 2026)

ENDS Sat 3rd OctoberYou can download a free catalogue (2Mb PDF)

For more details

https://artisann.org/collections/emerging-artists-2026

Winifred Otowa

MFA related shows of Mary McIntyre & Robert Anderson and Susan Hughes at the MAC 31st July – 18th Oct 2026.

Mary McIntyre & Robert Anderson – Reconstructions: A Room for Mike Kelley.
https://themaclive.com/exhibition/reconstructions-a-room-for-mike-kelley

Reconstruction III (2026). Colour gliclee print, 150cm x 210cm. McIntyre & Anderson

Reconstructions: A Room for Mike Kelley is a series of collaborative works by artists Mary McIntyre (MFA 1990) & Robert Anderson (MFA 2009), made in response to live performances by the late artist Mike Kelley (1954 –2012) produced during the late 1970’s and early 1990’s.

When artists Mary McIntyre and Robert Anderson first encountered the performance works of Mike Kelley (1954 – 2012) it was through a series of small black and white photographs. Disconnected from their original context, Kelley’s performance documentation constituted a bemusing series of images, which left them intrigued.

The discovery of these photographs led McIntyre and Anderson to a growing fascination with the act of recording the ‘live event’ and how a photograph, with the primary function of faithfully documenting such an event, when divorced from context or supporting information, can take on an altogether different set of possibilities.

It is that proposition which forms the basis for their collaborative project, ‘Reconstructions: A Room for Mike Kelley’. Over a period of 10 years, McIntyre and Anderson have studied Kelley’s performance documentation and set about meticulously reconstructing the studio environments in which Kelley enacted his live works, from the basic plywood door that sits ajar, to the exact positioning of an odd collection of objects that lie strewn on the studio floor.

These objects, constructed to mimic those found in Kelley’s performance documentation, which range from the strange to the familiar, from the plausible to the bizarre, act as potential cultural signifiers that can be read as both significant and mundane.

However, in McIntyre and Anderson’s series of reconstructions, the figurative elements present in Kelley’s performance documentation, have been omitted. Without a protagonist, their possible interpretation has been left deliberately open to allow for fluid shifts in meaning, depending on their perceived status, cultural context or individual readings stemming from viewer experience.

In ‘Reconstructions: A Room for Mike Kelley’, McIntyre and Anderson present an empty stage, ready to come alive with myriad fictional histories, potential narratives and associations, made possible in the viewer’s imagination.

Susan Hughes – A Feeling in the Blood:
https://themaclive.com/exhibition/susan-hughes-a-feeling-in-the-blood

Installation image: Simon Mills

A Feeling in the Blood by Belfast based artist and fiddle player Susan Hughes (MFA 2021) is an exhibition across a range of media including video, sculpture and installation.

Susan has travelled across Ireland having conversations with musicians, dancers, singers, researchers and archivists gathering stories from the rich and complex world of Irish music, song and dance. This exhibition presents some of the mystery, myth, obsession and collective transcendence she has encountered along the way.

A Feeling in the Blood is programmed to coincide with Belfast Trad Fest and Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann is a fluid, participatory and collaborative space.

Displayed within the exhibition are a range of loaned objects from members of the public who responded to a call for artefacts and belongings which had a history relating to a personal experience of traditional Irish music over the years.

Also present is a purpose-built stage which will be activated by ad-hoc performances by visiting musicians to the Fleadh, as well as a curated programme of performances throughout the run of the exhibition.

The title ‘A Feeling in the Blood’ is sourced from an archival recording of fiddle player Néillidh Boyle from Dungloe, Co. Donegal.

“If you notice every note seems to have a sad, a crying effect. That note has to be embellished. It’s done with a slight grace note which can’t be seen with the movement of the fingers. It’s done with a feeling in the blood. It can’t, this thing can’t be written and it’s very hard to explain it on paper.” (1953)

Ulster Presents ‘Navigating by Kaleidoscope’. Exhibition by Dan Shipsides (inc. Shipsides & Beggs). 14th Sep – 4th Nov. 2026. Reception Friday 18th Sep.

Ulster Presents ‘Navigating by Kaleidoscope’.

Exhibition by Dan Shipsides (inc. Shipsides & Beggs).
14th Sep – 4th Nov.
Reception Friday 18th Sep. 6-8pm (Culture Night)

How to find the gallery:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hopR7Rr8AaJukTSY7
Ulster University Art Gallery is located at the entrance to our main building, the McCracken Building (aka Block BC) on York Street.

Navigating by kaleidoscope.

Dan Shipsides (MFA 1997) – (inc. Shipsides & Beggs).

This show brings together older work which came at flux times in Shipsides’ practice. It marks developing tendencies, changes in thinking and expanding methods, for example, moving from direct ideas of rock-climbing as art to encompassing the wider collaborative worlds which circulate that experiential activity. It also marks shifts in artistic license, in becoming confident to follow the creative attention and process in more open and less controlled ways and often with humour. This led to personal insights as to how art, for artist and audience, operates with different logics which involve an unfolding through doing, and itself a kind of creative adventure without a prescribed outcome or predetermined take-away knowledge set.

All the works draw on specific contexts and subject matter in ways where elements act as motifs rather than fixed signifiers. In Zombie Line (2015) the bicycle wheel and wire become motifs which draw out ideas of mobility and boundaries across personal, political and historical trajectories, touching on the Avant-garde and the rise of militarised far right in the early 20^th century.

Questions around the fidelity of language occupies a key flux, where language fails as a coda for communicating experience or reliable meaning and becomes a malleable material itself. The original ZONA Di RIFUGIO (2009) sign was found in avalanche debris in the Italian Dolomites. Unsure of its intended meaning, the sign became open with potential, especially as Shipsides and Beggs escaped a near fatal lightning strike on the highest summit. The reformulated sign perhaps acts as a form of votive as well as an invitational welcome to refuge.

Another encounter, with Charles Oakley’s small, beautiful and beguiling  gouache ‘A Coast Structure’ (c1970), featuring a curious geometric shape under a full moon, led to realising the depicted form in cast concrete structures Ouroboros (2012) which act like sentinels, and conveniently, as seats. 

Cultural influences range from avant-garde energies (especially that of ‘pata-physics where within ‘pata-perception’ Shipsides describes a perception infused by imagination) to prehistoric cave art, where the encounter is utterly compelling yet meaning is ultimately unknowable and mysterious.

A more recent flux, back to direct tree drawing in Belfast’s greenspaces, as a ‘kalos-eidos-scopeō’ practice of being and engagement through embodied, sustained looking and drawing, prefigures the question of what ‘knowledges or experiences are encountered through such drawings?

As this exhibition is in an institutional place of learning and knowledge acquisition, it feels important to state that for artists and audience, art knowledge and learning often operates in very different modes than more conventional subject areas. Here other knowledge also comes through doing or being with things and the transmission of it occurs in the encounter rather than primarily purely the reading of things. 

Bio
Exhibiting internationally, Dan Shipsides is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist based in Belfast where he is also the Course Director of the MFA Fine Art. Some of the work here comes from within the Shipsides and Beggs partnership (since 2004), an ongoing collaboration crossing over individual practices.

http://www.danshipsides.com