Catalyst Arts is delighted to host the Expanded Territories exhibition tours.

2nd April – 10th April 2015

Opening 2nd April, 6-9 pm

Expanded Territories explores the outcomes of bringing together people from divergent industries, fields and disciplines and encourages them to create solutions together, step out of their comfort zones and collaborate, support and inform each other. Expanded Territories will demonstrate the creative and innovative talents of the region, and highlight the distinctive resources and character of the region articulated through prototype products, concepts and experiences. Certain unifying themes are evident – (re)connection to natural resources, the sharing of creativity, sustainability and regeneration, and re-localisation, focusing on the overall objectives of the HCP. The April Exhibition will showcase concepts from cycle 2 of the Creative Labs and we would propose that the opportunity between June and December would bring together Creative Labs concepts from both cycles in addition to the presentations of the 12 new products which have been supported & developed through the HC programme. The exhibition will showcase the creative Labs concepts from both project cycles , 12 new product development projects and if possible an ancillary representation of the results of some of the HCP master classes which were based on the use of new techniques and digital technologies. The exhibition will be a culmination of the results of the overall Harnessing Creativity Project which concludes in June 2015. A number of the individual Creative Labs concepts from both cycles could have regional significance or could be developed across NI / Ireland.

For more information: http://www.harnessingcreativity.eu/

Capitalyst Arts: First Thursday, 2nd July 2009

Date: 2 July 2009

Capitalyst Arts:One night, three events.

2nd July 2009

Evelyne LeBlanc Rouberge

Chinese Welfare Centre, 7.00pm

Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge- Wet Markets

How do we occupy or define our personal space? What is the relationship we have with our city, our home and the architecture that defines that space? Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge’s photography is an exploration of urban geography, the tension between public and private space and its impact on the individual narrative. Through the media of digital colour photography, collage and online media, Canadian artist Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge explores the impact of urban landscapes on identity, and invites viewers to observe each mise-en-scene and recreate their own narratives.

In 2008, she spent 7 months in China where she continued working along these lines. In her exhibition Wet Markets Evelyne presents a personal journey, underlining the small details that caught her eye over there. This is a collection of observations in and on China in construction, in transformation, with all the tensions between tradition and modernity, wealth and poverty, urban/rural, the ephemeral and the perpetual.

www.evelynelr.com

Exhibition continues through to July 30th

Raster Noton

Black Box Cafe, 7.00pm

“raster-noton . archiv für ton und nichtton” is meant to be a platform — a network covering the overlapping border areas of pop, art and science. Emerging from the fusion of the two labels rastermusic and noton (in 1999) they realize music projects, publications and installation works. The common idea behind all releases is an experimental approach — an amalgamation of sound, art and design.

So far the catalogue of the label consists of about 70 releases. Most of the projects follow the concept of a series with contributions by very different artists such as, william basinski, alva noto, ivan pavlov aka coh, ryoji ikeda, ryuichi sakamoto or carl michael von hausswolff.

Olaf bender and carsten nicolai run raster-noton. the label is based in chemnitz / germany.
Catalyst will be showing thier CD designs, print and audio visual works.
Exhibition continues through to July 30th

Aisling O’Beirn

Boom or Bust Pub Quiz

Rose and Crown Bar, Ormeau Road

Quiz Starts 9.00pm

Aisling will host a pub quiz with a local feel relating to Belfast. Entrants will get a free poster and there will be a prize for the winning team.

Nika Oblak and Primoz Novak – Absolutely Fabulous 2

29 May – 4 July

Special Preview Event 28th May 6 – 8 pm

Catalyst Arts presents the first solo show in the UK or Ireland for the internationally exhibited Slovenian artist cooperative of Nika Oblak and Primoz Novak.

Oblak and Novak’s practise spans film, photographic manipulations and installations and their pastiches of popular films like Pulp Fiction and Taxi Driver and the feats shown in the Guinness Book of World Records are characteristic of their light hearted approach.

Their work investigates the influence of mass media on the individual living in a consumerist, gobalised society. Using the idiosyncracities of social interaction Oblak and Novak explore the issues with sensitivity and humour.

For Absolutely Fabulous, Oblak and Novak will be presenting their photographic and video series We Did This And That, reconstructing absurd Guinness World Records. They aim to examine the obsession with success and fame in contemporary society, influenced by the mass communication media. In carefully constructed photographs and videos they appear to be record holders and confront the viewer with constructed categories of fiction and reality.

Alongside this will be Shund and Cab Driver, frame by frame recreations of the trailers for Pulp Fiction and Taxi Driver, with all parts played by the artists. In this way they subject themselves to the influence of mass media, exploring the position of an individual as a passive consumer of monopolized, one way communicated media content, and materialize a common fascination with celebrities.

Shambles

Opening: Friday 1st May 6.30 – 9 pm
Continues – Saturday 2nd May 1 – 4 pm

An exhibition of recent work by 2nd year BA (Hons) Students of Sculpture, Photo, Time and Video from the School of Art and Design at the University of Ulster.

The Performance Collective

20 February 2009 18:00 – 26 February

Artists:
Alex Conway, Amanda Coogan, Dominic Thorpe, Francis Mezzetti, Michelle Browne and Pauline Cummins.

Friday 20th Feb         Living Installation     – 6-8pm
Saturday 21st Feb    Big Jam             – 6-8pm (at Catalyst)
Walking in the Way     – 1-2pm
(located on Church Lane between Victoria Street and High Street)
Sunday 22nd Feb     Discussion         – 3-4.30pm
Monday 23rd – Thursday 26th  Detritus of Performance and projected 11-5pm

‘Notes and Volcanoes’ Lyndsey McDougall and Hannah Casey

15 January 2009 19:00 – 24 January

‘Notes and Volcanoes’

Lyndsey McDougall and Hannah Casey show the accumulation of work made for their Masters in Textiles. The work includes paintings, drawings, textiles and mini sculptures. The work will be displayed until Saturday 24th of January.

Opening event Thursday 15th January at 7pm.

Catalyst Arts presents Open Studios

17 November 2008 11:00 – 20 December

Open Studios

Gallery hours – 11-5pm Tuesday – Saturday
Exhibition dates :
17th – 22nd November – Tit Tat ‘Disco Olympics’ – Opening Event Saturday Evening 22nd
24th – 29th November – Ben Craig – Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell. Opening event Friday 28th 12pm-5pm
1st – 6th December – Revati Mann – Opening Event Thursday 4th 7pm
8th – 20th December – Cian Donnelly – Opening Event Saturday 20th 8pm

Open Studios presents six artists to making new work in and for the Catalyst gallery space, over five weeks this winter.

The selected artists will transform the Catalyst gallery space into a creative laboratory, investigating contemporary studio practice through relocation of the studio into a gallery- a space in which audiences are invited to chat, observe and engage with the artists’ processes.
Visiting hours will be 11am to 5pm daily, Tuesdays to Saturdays.
We will develop photographic documentation of the space as it changes, which will be displayed in our Resource Room.

Come down and see whats happening!

Artist Led Archive

5 April 2008 15:00 – 26 April

Conceived by artist and curator Megs Morley in response to a practial and conceptual enquiry into artist-led culture in Ireland.

The archive initiates debate and critical thinking into the sometimes contested ‘histories’ of artist-led organisations, celebrating the work of past initiatives and exposing the roots of some of our oldest cultural vehicles. In doing so, it creates a resource tool and context for future initiatives. Also on show for the duration of the exhibition will be the work of artist in residence, Duncan Ross. His highly subjective and discriminatory study of Catalyst’s own archive will be described in a wall based mind map and a video montage culled from multi media remnants.

Saturday 5th Opening discussion from 3-5pm

Featuring:
– David O’Brien
– Mick Fortune
– Dan Jewsberry
– Aileen Lambert
– Deidre O’Mahonny

Opening reception from 8pm featuring a performance by Rainer Pagel

Thursday 24th and Friday 25th Screenings of a selection of rare artist films from the archive from 7pm

Catalyst Arts 2nd floor 5 College Court Belfast BT1 6BS

KIBO

Annual Student Show 2007

Kathy Graham – Dawn Hannah – Johanna Leech – Seamus Sullivan – Ben Craig – Thomas Walker – Peter Spiers – Ethna O’Regan – Elizabeth Sweetin – Tracy Hanna – Rebecca Ann Tess – Nicky Larkin

‘Es (the above I)’

5 May 2007 19:00 – 31 May

Preview: Sat 5th May 7-9 pm.

Exhibition runs from:
8th – 30th May 2007
Tue – Sat 11am – 5pm.
This exhibition is showcasing new commissions from four international artists who are both gaining recognition for, and are in the practice of fully realising artworks of a highly substantive, qualitative and contemporaneous nature. Albeit the outcomes are very diverse, the four artists chosen share a common thread in their practice. The departure point for them all is drawing which underscores their methodologies, but the show Es presents a prismatic range of end results, from drawings on paper or directly onto the gallery walls, through to painting, sculpture, installation and film. It offers an opportunity to compare and contrast the ways in which the exhibiting artists combine these different media within their practises.

A delicate web of connections, spanning three vibrant artistic communities unites these works. The title for the show reflects this element of connectivity and translation. The image has the word ES written in the sky; the German for IT. The Freudian term for the division of the psyche is Es, Ich, Ãœberich (id, ego, superego), yet its direct translation is “It, I, over I”. However, if one does a search for a translation online, one gets “The Above I”. This also serves as a suitable metaphor for the act of drawing itself as gaining understanding of the world through the eye of the artist; processed in the psyche and expressed by the artist’s hand, it consequently translates the world into moments of resolved meaning. This form of translation also hints at man’s metaphysical conundrum of trying to gain understanding of our position in the universe: the IT (everything) above I (the individual).

These subtly evolving semantic links furthermore serve as a metaphor for the interconnectivity of the artists’ practice, highlighting the similarities and differences informed by their cultural surroundings.
Lucy Skaer:
Glasgow, New York
Skaer’s practice incorporates many artistic techniques, from drawing, to interventions in the street, to scientific collaboration. Lucy’s drawings utilise found imagery reinterpreted through known compositional structures such as Venn and Rorschach inkblots.
Lucy has been nominated as one of the representatives of Scotland in this years’ Venice biennial.

C-Zine

June 2004

C-Zine is an exhibition/library of independant publications made in Belfast and beyond.

Under your skin

From Ritual to Romance: Mail Art Show.

6th of December 2001 – 10th January 2002

Using the theme of the body and how we alter its surface to portray an inner characteristic or belief. Manipulating the body in an expression of self and using it as a direct means of communication through something as a tool of association to memories, desires, feelings and emotions, combinbining this with the use of the postal system, to dissect ourselves physically and mentally. A journey into ourselves to be assembled dispatched and reassembled on arrival.
This open submission to members exhibition asked people to submit a piece of work via the postal system on any medium such as: postcards, letters, designed envelopes, photographs, handmade paper, acetates, packages that can be opened by an audience or guessed at, x rays photographs, photocopies, L.P’s, invoices, receipts, vinyl, steel, fabric or even a combination of articles from a single piece. These materials were used by the artists as a vehicle of communication to be sent by post reflecting the journey of that object with the journey of its sender. 567 artists participated.

The Stars Looks Down

18th of october – 1st of december 2001

This exhibition showcased a diverse selection of new works from 7rising artists based in Northern Ireland, with machines and inventions, sushi, film, paint, drawing, exploring our fears and paranoia’s, food, dating and the stuff we trow out featuring Michiko Okuyama completed an AM in Applied Arts in June 2001. Using screen print, paper, sculpture, pop up boxes, origami and real sushi her work explored her own relationship to her native Japan, and employs the distinctive colours and patterns inherent in its culture. Paddy Bloomer is currently at the workshop collective. Using industrial and domestic mechanical waste;society s waste Paddy makes machines. He explores the fallacy of invention and inventors as well as notions of consumer waste. Deliberately employing dysfunctional mechanisms give his inventions an unpredictable, chaotic will of their own, often prone to spectacular and dangerous self destruction. Diane Wilson graduated from the University of Ulster in 2000 she works with super 8 film, found junk and natural materials and is concerned with social highs and lows. Using animation and film stills she showed a short drama about dating. Mark Taylor makes paintings depicting dogs, these intense images are worked from video footage and snapshots. Tey explore our preconceived psychological fears of the animal as well as the manipulation of reality into fiction. Nicky Keogh graduated in 2000 from U.W.E in Bristol, he is interested in our place between nature and technological age of media mayhem tat we live in. A previous project involved manufacturing a device that enabled small fish to explore trees. Duncan Ross is another 2000 graduate, from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Previous projects have included the creation of his own Contemporary Art Center. Confused about the difference between art and the other things he sees. This manifestation will took the form of another ‘wall drawing’. Simon McBride graduated from the University of Ulster in 2000. His work mainly deals with the notion of process, although at the same time his pieces take on a high degree of ‘closure’. They therefore questioned the notion of the finished piece of art.

Crash Pad

16th – 31st August 2001

This exhibition was a compilation of music videos and bootleg music performances. It was presented as a installation in the gallery. This was an open call submission for material for this exhibition which was then compiled in this collection of projections.

Featuring promos, TV appearances, bootlegs and authorised releases from:

Sonic Youth, Throbbing Gristle, Mouse On Mars, Devo, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, My Bloody Valentine, Pussy Galore, Dr & the Crippens, Swans, Napalm Death, Spaceman 3, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Atari Teenage Riot, Add N to X, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Stereolab, Monster Magnet, Huggy Bear, Shellac, Bongwater, Phychic TV, The Cramps, Ultra Vivid Scene, The Fall, Coil, Gallon Drunk, Television, Rapeman, Mercury Rev, Nirvana, Fugazi, The Jesus Lizard, The Flaming Lips, Big Black, Mudhoney, Ciccone Youth, Pink Floyd, Joy Division, Einsturzende Neubatten, Lee Ranaldo, Aphex Twin, David Sylvian, Some Velvet Sidewalk.

Strutt

31st July – 10th August 2001

This exhibition was part of the Belfast Pride Festival, artists participating were Michelle Mc Cloy, Phil Collins, Deirdre Mc Kenna, Sam Rucica, Miriam Rogers, Stephen Mc Keowan, Michael O’ Boyle, Phil Hession, Fiona Ni Mhaoili.
The show deals with sexual identity and imagery around these issues.

Alex Bag

18/5 – 10/6 2000

Catalyst Arts are very proud to present Alex Bag – the New York bag lady of numerous guises cometh to infuse Belfast with her frivolous flare. ‘Twelve Spells’ are twelve photographs of Bag’s mates representing the zodiac signs, each sign induced by it’s favorite drug. ‘The Artist Mind’, 30min video spoof on Damien Hirst, starring Alex’s brother Damian Bag. Video/ lounge/ library. Come and lounge and get seduced in her very own living room – warped through timezones and the Atlantic and landing right here in the upper gallery space at Catalyst Arts. Zinging of her video library spanning the works: Spring 94, fall 95, fancypantz, his girlfriend is a robot, harriet craig, untitled project for the Andy Warhol museum, a compilation of public access show, and a compilation of various appropriated television and video clips.

The Max Factory- Mocks

27th April 8pm

Praying, Cursing & setting big fires

31st March – 22nd April 2000

Member show – No Trustpassing

Cathedral Quarter Art Festival

3rd – 13th May 2001

Catalyst participated again in the growing and successful Second Cathedral Quarter Festival. Gillian Wearing confess all on video opened in Catalyst on May 3rd and ran until May 1(th. Gillian Wearing was the 1997 Turner Prize nominee who belongs to a group of young innovative British Artist making profound impact on the art scene of our time. This work in the gallery consisted of video obsessions and confessions of things people wanted to say in front of a camera.
A Night With John Carson was held in Catalyst Arts on May the 10th. This was his first public appearance in Belfast since leaving twenty years ago, he took a ramble across the years where art and life have become strangely confused. People Like Us was at Catalyst Arts on the 4th of May. It was the work of Vicki Bennett whose CD’s and LPs on soleilmoon Recordings, Hot Art, Straalplaat and Audioview labels feature her unique Plunderphonic styling. Die Kunst was at Catalyst Arts on May 5th this was an avant punk art surf trio DIe Kunst wich are an art project production with a powerful analogue sentiment. This was also part of the international Langage project by Grassy Knoll production. Divine Trash was at Catalyst Arts on May 7th it was a indepth look at the early career of the outrageous cult filmmaker John Waters. John T. Davis Screening & Talks. Anumber of films and filmmakers have emerged in recent years who are also the manner in wich they do so. John T Davis is one of these and this is a sscreening of three of his films. I Can Be Rented was in Catalyst May 9th, A night of Gay film and video for over 1!s and those of a nervous disposition. Memory Cells and Avanto this is a visual noise piece wich featured filmmakers employing various strategies of visual sabotage. the shared theme of these works is the pure aesthetics pleasure than can be derived from delibarate flaws, disturbances and irregularities both in digital and celluloid imagery. Oval was on May 4th and it was a music about media, aesthetic presence and organised sound, composed out of remants of both music and musicality.

Bush Mechanics

10th February – 18th March 2000 Bush Mechanics was Catalyst Arts first show of 2000,  the two artists worked in collaboration to produce a show including site specific sculpture, video and installation. Claire Barclay from Glasgow and Anne Ooms from Sydney, Australia, both share the experience of having lived in each others countries for an extensive period of time.  The exhibition signifies a working process developed by Anne and Claire through correspondance of text, image and video.  This show was accompanied by a special Artists talk and Film Club event on Friday 11th February.   Review in Circa, May – June 2000, Ruth Jones and SSI  May – June 2000, Miriam de Burca.