Materials, Messages and Meanings #10
Borders, Boundaries and Bridges

Open call exhibition for Artists and Makers whose work responds to the theme:

Borders, Boundaries and Bridges

~the edge of something ~ a separating line ~ division ~ be adjacent to ~ a dividing line ~ marking the limits ~ perimeter ~ fringes ~ partition ~ periphery ~ confines ~ outer limits ~ a connecting structure ~ transitional ~ across ~ between the gaps ~ link ~ movement between obstacles ~

Now in its tenth year, this group exhibition will explore artists’ and makers’ different approaches to the materials they choose to work with and why; the messages and meaning they wish to convey using those materials; what those messages are, and the methods of production and process they use to make the work. Artists / makers based in Northern Ireland at different career stages, working in a variety of media, were selected from an open call for this exhibition.

Eleanor Wheeler

Meadhbh McIlgorm

Paul McMordie & Robert Peters

Rebecca O’Flaherty

Sinead O’Donnell

About The Artists

Eleanor Wheeler has been a self employed artist for 20+ years specialising in large and small scale site-specific artwork in ceramic, carved brick, cast recon stone and bronze. To date has completed 50+ public and community art projects as well as making architectural and garden features for private clients. Works with diverse communities and schools employing art in regeneration,  rehabilitation and peace building programmes in both urban and rural locations. An ongoing preoccupation in the last 5-10 years of making journeys, has been that of the  significance of borders. Many of these journeys have entailed crossing borders and following routes that have become  synonymous with historic or recent migration due to war and political instability or economic  necessity.

Meadhbh McIlgorm is a mixed-media artist/maker. She studied Craft Design and History of Art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, specialising in glass and graduating in 2013 with honours. She received the DCCoI Future Makers Student Award (2013) and has shown work in several national group exhibitions including the Irish Glass Biennale (2019), RDS Craft Awards, Sculpture in Context (2014), and ‘Solas’ (Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford, 2015/16). Originally from Dublin, she has been living and working in Belfast since 2015 and is a member at QSS artists studios. Her work is influenced by and always returns to the ephemeral and the transient. A labour intensive, and craft-led approach in production is typically a comment on the lengthy rituals we go to in an attempt to preserve that which is fleeting. Objects and subjects are often on edges of existing, on the cusp of breaking or barely holding together. Shadows and reflections act as intangible boundaries and bridges connecting these fragile things to their environment.

Paul Mc Mordie and Robert Peters (collaboration)

Paul McMordie is a guitarist and composer with a career which has spanned more than 30 years and many celebrated recordings. McMordie has had a lot of practice putting high concept into a humble package. Long hailed as one of the most distinctive and original improvising guitarists to come from Ireland. He has also earned a reputation for teasing out thematic connections with his music. He is a most vital and productive performing artists, McMordie in 2018 won a lifetime achievement award from Ards International Guitar Festival for his work and music.

Robert Peters has over 30 years experience of working in the visual arts sector as an exhibiting artist, curator, arts facility manager and educator. He established Arts Creative to realise the potential of art activities beyond the restrictions of bureaucratic constraints. The visual arts provide a limitless source of material and techniques through which to foster skill development, personal growth, community development, emotional wellbeing and issue awareness.

Rebecca O’Flaherty is a Northern Irish visual artist, working within performance art. Currently studying on BA Hons Photography with Video at Belfast School of Art, O’Flaherty work explores and questions different conceptual outcomes surrounding Northern Irish politics and growing up within politically unstable landscapes.

Sinéad O’Donnell is one of north of Ireland’s foremost performance artists, with an international profile through numerous residencies and performances both nationally and internationally. Her work explores identity, borders, and barriers through encounters with territory and the territorial. She sets up actions or situations that demonstrate complexities, contradictions, or commonality between medium and discipline, timing and spontaneity, intuition and methodology, artist, and audience. She uses photography and video and to record her performances. She often uses her body to investigate both her own and cultural boundaries, particularly in relation to the restrictions placed on women. Despite deliberately avoiding the sensationalisation of the body, her works often promote strong reactions and emotions.

Funding for the Materials, Messages and Meanings Open Call exhibitions is provided by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to support artists based in Northern Ireland.