Catalyst Arts presents:

Trickster

Chloe Brenan | Alexandra Brunt 

1st – 17th December

Catalyst Arts is delighted to announce details of it’s recent members open call  ‘Trickster’ featuring Dublin based artists Chloe Brenan and Alexandra Brunt. Opening 6PM, Thursday 1st December

The trickster is a mythological entity or archetype, indicative of absurd or destabilising re-evaluations of perception and its limitations. The work of both artists explore ideas of rearranging perceptual modes to break down and ultimately reassemble conceptions of self and objective reality respectively.

Dublin based artist Alexandra Brunt presents a series of three recent Sound works. These artworks explore Brunt’s interest in perception, phenomenology and consider the fabrication of participatory experience through sound. Through the Juxtaposition of object, body and the female voice the artworks depict a playful yet sinister dialogue of the immaterial subject matter embodied within the work. Her artworks challenge states of reality and physiological phenomena, with particular focus on cultural modes of fragmentation, agency and structures of power.

The work of Chloe Brenan tends to hinge on minimalist interactions with objects and surfaces, often stepping between the languages of text, moving image, print, installation and analogue photographic media.The Hole In The Donut is a moving image piece that explores the representation and destabilization of linear conceptions of time. Astrological phenomena serve as points of reference; celestial orbits and cycles, lunar/solar eclipses, and the periodic alignment of planets in the sky. The piece addresses the absurd, futile and melancholic human need to make sense, order and pattern out of a vast, often chaotic, universe.

These phenomena are considered by way of an investigation into the limits of analogue photographic media, utilizing structural filmmaking techniques such as fixed framing, accelerated shutter speed, close up shots, slow motion, and the polyrhythmic use of three conflicting rhythms. Circular props of various sizes, which act as frames for negative space, are dropped in front of a 16mm camera camera lens in a particular order so that it fleetingly captures what they eye cannot see. The descending objects are then edited into a triptych of three separate rhythmic pieces, played out alongside one another. The cascading objects and sounds, though initially in unison, immediately begin to fall out of sync, eventually realigning, only to dissolve into disharmony once again. This elliptical process repeats infinitely. The loops act as interruptions to linear forward movement, and instead, like planets within a solar system, the objects are bound together in a diverging and intersecting, contrapunctal system. The space created by these loops is that of a perpetual present, emphasized by the torus shaped objects that in themselves have no beginning or end point. Conversely, the series Resonance Overlaps takes its title from a particular phenomenon in celestial mechanics that sees the diffusion or breakdown of planetary orbits; where the synchronous spin paths of two orbiting satellites intersect, exerting a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other. This produces an orbital eccentricity, or ‘chaotic sea’ in which spin orbits are broken down and from which new paths are created. This dissolution of order into disharmony, and vice versa, is explored through the use of roller marks, typically utilized in the preparation stage of printmaking. Various inked lines intersect at irregular intervals, producing a series of marks that exist somewhere in between a grid or net structure coming into focus or dissolving into a haze.

Catalyst Arts presents:

Mediating Environments

Matthew Bourree | Paula Deji | John Wild

Open Thursday 3rd November – Wednesday 23 November

John Wild performance 7.30pm on the opening night

The world beyond the confines of our body is intimately connected to our actions – as much cultural artefact as something wild and other, ‘out there’ – nature and techne vitally expressed through our lives and creations. We continually feed into and are moulded by an interminable flux of co-creative relationships and cycles, reflexive actors who fall in and out of sync with innumerable collectives and circumstances. How we perceive these complex ecologies and the meanings we derive from what we do within them, frames our worldview, subtly affecting how we are subsumed by social fields and evolutionary flows. In this time of accelerating change and spiritual transformation can we come to terms with our uncertain predicament? How to navigate the indescribable, manifold environments in which we are embedded?

Catalyst Arts presents:

INDIGENOUS

22^nd October – In conjunction with Belfast Open Studios

Opening: 21^st October 6-9pm

Catalyst Arts is pleased to present a group show of recent work from locally-based artists in conjunction with Belfast Open Studios, 2016.

INDIGENOUS showcases a selection of work from artists currently based in Belfast and offers a glimpse into diverse approaches and methodologies towards the process of art making within the city.

Catalyst Arts presents:

‘In the Mouth of the Wolf’

Clodagh Emoe, Anahita Razmi, School of Missing Studies, Subject to Authority Reading group, COLLECTED

 Thur 18th Aug 6 – 9pm / Event Thur 1st Sept 6-7pm / Closing Event Sat 10th Sept

‘I could be dead. He slit my tongue into ribbons. My head is hanging off the table, blood falling on the floor. I could be dead because I feel nothing but this happened before. Minutes without pain until it surged back through me like a river. Eyes full of water. A blurred insect slips out from behind a table leg and begins to feed on the pooling blood. Concentrate.’ -Francis McKee ‘What in the world can I do’

This project is driven by the act of witness and the encounter in contested spaces whether municipal or ideological. It looks at how artists approach research and the dissemination of thought and how the knowledge structures they access, personally, politically and philosophically are forming a channel for public practice. A series of multi-format texts form the basis of this project, examining the instrumentalisation of modes of broadcast and publishing, how narratives are constructed within contemporary communication and education systems and how these narratives may be authored by artists.

The ongoing destabilisation of institutional power structures globally has given rise to a more acute attempt to enforce social hierarchy and meritocracy socially, politically and economically. Yet traditional methods of exerting social dominance have become ineffective at maintaining stability in the current age of personal broadcast and visual agency. Increasingly, previously under-represented groups are affecting these narratives and gaining agency on their own representation in media through the proliferation of digital, visual footage, frequently charged with a dominant narrative of personal perception rather than that of an objective document of observation.

‘In the mouth of the wolf’ proposes a slight, altered reality where journalism and reporting is a defunct and unoccupied field. Artists have been drawn into the vacuum by gravitational force and are controlling the distribution of capabilities and the exercise of influence disseminating thought and action through new channels as the voice of authority. The gallery becomes a public square where thinking may be felt, a station for subjectivity, disembodied voices and notions of the unseen, a platform for hidden acts to be received by a new audience and a space for thought.

Catalyst Arts presents:

Very Good Waves Now

Student and Recent Graduate Show 2016

Marian Balfe | Daniel Coleman | Cillian Finnerty | Peter Glasgow | Aine McBride | Andrew McSweeney | Cliodhna Timoney

15h July – 5th August

Very Good Waves Now will build on Catalyst’s reputation for showcasing the very best of work from UK and Ireland based recent graduates and final year students within this annual exhibition. Catalyst are delighted to be offering critical support and exposure at a formative stage in the artists’ development.

Catalyst Arts presents:

Outside Line

Tanad Williams

12th May | Opening

‘Outside Line’ a new permanent commission by Tanad Williams.

Beginning through a shared residency in 2015 in a flexible period of research and investigation, Williams engaged with the early issues, strains and identity of the gallery’s archival space. Proofing for possibilities of fitted cooperation an expanded utility for public archival actions was drafted. Unfolding a progressively combined approach to building regulations and sculpture while upholding the poise and warm precision of the unqualified handyman, a skilfully manufactured architectural intervention is presented.

Indicative of ambitious contemporary restoration proposals ‘Outside Line’ sits assuredly creating a source designed around reading. A structural elixir it reflects how it is we approach cached information and the objects we associate with it.

Williams works with philosophically engaged objects, dialogues and texts. Rooted in academic research and linguistic investigation, the final object is constructed so as to represent both its material reality and its theoretical conception.

This work has being kindly made possible through the support of The Elephant Trust.

Catalyst Arts presents:

Sephour 06

21st – 26th April

A exhibition of work by 2nd Year Sculpture and Lens students at the University of Ulster.

Sephour is an anagram of Orpheus

Sephour is Orpheus transformed

Sephour is a homonym of Zephyr

Since migrating from the old Orpheus Building to they’re new purpose built art department, the 2nd year Fine Art (Sculpture/Lens) students have been negotiating and developing their relationship with the new space. This Exhibition welcomed an audience to view their progress.

This was the first group exhibition from the new Sculpture/Lens studios on the 6th floor.

Catalyst Arts presents:

THE ARTIST OBSERVATORY

 LUCY MCKENNA

FEBRUARY – APRIL 2016

‘The Artist Observatory’ is the second edition of a new alternative residency programme piloted by Catalyst Arts. This series began last autumn with Alice Clark as ‘Artist-at-Sea’ on board marine and oceanographic research vessel the RV Corystes and continues with artist Lucy McKenna taking up research residence at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium this spring. At a time when artists are experiencing a decline in accessible resources and facilities in the pursuit of their work and research, Catalyst Arts is committed to the mediation of new approaches to facilitating unique research opportunities for artists tailored to their specific practice and field of research.

Catalyst Arts presents:

Intermission

Intermission is a group exhibition of the current final year students within the Ulster University’s prestigious and long standing MFA Fine Art course.

Intermission presents an interim exhibition at Catalyst Arts before their final show in May 2016. It offers a fascinating exploration of these emerging contemporary artists’ work in progress, creating an open dialogue across diverse disciplines including installation, video, photography, sculpture and painting.