Brian McAvera applauds Colin Davidson’s turn to portraiture as several of his works go on display in Belfast, Dublin and London
The intellectual child’s version of the Knock-Knock joke is ‘When is a door not a door’, the answer being ‘When it’s ajar’. This playful punning attitude to transformation – the door being turned into a jar by way of a pun – comes to mind on looking at the work of Colin Davidson. For a long time he was a landscape/townscape painter preoccupied by Belfast and its environs, and then he became preoccupied with reflections in windows; a strange, slightly surreal and often haunting third space where nothing was as it seemed.
Ahead of Dragana Jurisic’s solo show at the RHA in September we republish Stephanie McBride’s examination of the photographer’s 2011 show at the Droichead Arts Centre, studies of urban survival taken during the Celtic Tiger years, revealing Ireland’s struggling society.
Paul Larmour visits the new theatre, which he describes as a boon for the dramatic arts and the most exciting building in Belfast