There were 2,700 submissions to this year’s Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) exhibition, from which 353 were selected.
There were 2,700 submissions to this year’s Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) exhibition, from which 353 were selected.
In what must be a first, two artists won double awards: Samantha Ellis Fox received the Ross’s Portrait Prize and the Ulster Watercolour Award for Girl in Checked Shirt; and Paul Porter scooped the ArtisAnn Gallery Award and the Leonora Millar Award for his pastiche Renaissance oil Seeing Is Believing.
The Niavac Gold Medal went to Eddie Rafferty for the splendid collage Interior with Elegy to the Spanish Republic, with the Tom Caldwell Silver Medal going to Alison Lowry for her sculpture Home. Sarah Longley collected the Bradbury Art Drawing Award for a very fine charcoal, Pattern, while the W & G Baird Printmaking Prize went to Stephen Lawlor for Boogie Pop Phantom, though he had stiff competition from Sophie Aghajanian, James Allen and Declan Byrne, among others.
In terms of landscape, the Hillsborough Castle Prize was awarded to Olivia Henchy for Warm Summer Fields. Kate Beagan’s fine Boyne Valley took the AE Russell Award, while Gormley’s Paul Henry Prize went to David Agenjo’s Stuff and Them.
This was an excellent year for sculpture, with intriguing and often surprising pieces from Bob Sloan, Jason Ellis, Graham Gingles and Carolyn Mulholland. The Irish News Prize for a Sculptural Installation went to Denise McAuley for Materia Medica; the Hamilton Architects Award was given to Stephanie Hess’ bronze By the Tail, while Catherine McWilliams won the Textile Prize for Grauballe Man.
In painting, interesting works by Eamon Colman, Clement McAleer and Eileen Ferguson were ignored, while the Tyrone Guthrie Mid-Career Painter Award went to Jonathan McHugh. Dougal McKenzie was awarded the Hambly & Hambly Prize; the Sea Holly Gallery Prize went to Ange Bell, while an elegant Stephen Shaw work took the Sunflower Bar Award. The KPMG Young Artist Award went to Alana Barton.
Photography-based works by Peter Neill and Peter Richards stood out. The Errigle Inn Photography Prize went to Caroline Guinan’s portrait Dad, Son, and Granny – all of whom wore masks.
Brian McAvera
‘Poster Boys’ at the National Print Museum in Dublin’s Beggars Bush is an exhibition of fifty-six original Abbey Theatre posters from the 1970s and 1980s.
Growing up in Derry, Locky Morris lived under the kind of hyper-surveillance that has gradually become the norm worldwide.
An intriguing exhibition at Kilmainham Gaol’s museum in Dublin features photographs secretly taken by the prisoners detained during Ireland’s War of Independence.