The celebrated watercolour artist, Barbara Allen, returns home for exceptional new show at ArtisAnn Gallery in Belfast.

She is a six-time winner of the Watercolour Prize at the Royal Ulster Academy.

She has exhibited extensively including at the White House and at Bergen in Norway. Her work is held in many important collections, including the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland, Invest NI and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London.

Gary Shaw’s large watercolours are composed of thousands of individual brushstrokes – small, repeated hand gestures that build a quiet sense of order. The repetition recentres the artist and draws the viewer in and out of focus, eyes falling into the mesh of marks, then pulling back to take in the whole.

Gary Shaw has a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) from the South Australian School of Art and an MFA from Belfast School of Art. His work has been shown in the US, Canada, China, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Spain and the UK. In Northern Ireland, he has had numerous exhibitions including at PS2, Fenderesky Gallery and Queens University.

Contemporary artist Emma Berkery unveils her deeply moving new exhibition of abstract paintings, which trace the fragile line between hope & despair.
Late Night Art Opening: Thursday, November 6th, 6–9 PM. Wine reception with live music. Exhibition will be opened by acclaimed art historian Isabella Evangelisti.
Public viewing Friday 7th, Saturday 8th and Sunday 10th 11am-4pm and at additional times by appointment until Wednesday 12th November. The exhibition confronts the inherent fragility of existence and the quiet strength that emerges from the human need to hold onto hope.

Vault group exhibition.
For Late Night Art November we present ‘All Welcome’, an exhibition on the theme of ‘Art as Activism’ with a specific focus on challenging the growing and insidious far right narratives around immigration.
We asked artists from the Vault and other studios to respond to this lurch to the right in public discourse. Over forty artists responded with works that span a range of media, from traditional attributes of activism and protest, such as flags, zines, placards and riot shield handles, but also installations, paintings, photographs, embroidery works, prints, paintings, video, workshops, and mixed media pieces.

Exhibition Launch: Friday 7th November at 6pm 

Both shows present the perfect opportunity to support local artists and purchase unique artworks as unforgettable Christmas gifts.

Exhibition Launch: Friday 7th November at 6pm

The Pavestone Collective was established in October 2011, by clients who attend the Pavestone Centre, Coleraine. The collective was created through ‘Leisure Quest’, a programme designed to rehabilitate adults with physical or mental health conditions. Members of the Pavestone Collective have met to produce creative art for many years embracing all forms of visual arts for self-expression, skills development, and therapeutic value.

Step into the surreal with Raw Chicken—a live performance by Éabha Campbell and Indigo Azidahaka, with sound and light design by Cameron Clarke.

Using handmade puppets, nonsensical narration, and evolving costumes, Campbell and Azidahaka will slowly transform themselves into their own puppet characters – blurring the boundaries between object, subject, and performer. Clarke’s contributions include live manipulation of field recordings, filmic elements, and an improvised harmonium set—evoking a dense, uncanny soundscape.

On display from Thursday 2 October to Thursday 6 November.

Read more: https://www.catalystarts.org.uk/nonstick-frying-pan

Exhibition continues from the 2nd of October to the 6th of November 2025

An exhibition exploring domesticity and the home, featuring work from Alex Keatinge and Niamh Hannaford.

Golden Thread Gallery is proud to present Radical Hope, a new exhibition developed in collaboration with Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland. Curated from Collection II, one of Poland’s most significant collections of contemporary art, the exhibition offers a timely reflection on uncertainty, resilience, and the transformative potential of art.

Collection II, held by the Arsenal Gallery and shaped under the direction of Monika Szewczyk, traces the evolving landscape of contemporary art in Poland and Eastern Europe over the past three decades. Developed as an ‘open corpus,’ the collection is a living archive: dynamic, growing, and responsive to the shifting narratives of our time.

This exhibition is part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, British Council and Polish Cultural Institute in London, and supported by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland.

Exhibition continues from the 13th of September to the 8th of November 2025

Golden Thread Gallery is proud to present Radical Hope, a new exhibition developed in collaboration with Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland. Curated from Collection II, one of Poland’s most significant collections of contemporary art, the exhibition offers a timely reflection on uncertainty, resilience, and the transformative potential of art.

Step into the surreal with Raw Chicken—a live performance by Éabha Campbell and Indigo Azidahaka, with sound and light design by Cameron Clarke.

Using handmade puppets, nonsensical narration, and evolving costumes, Campbell and Azidahaka will slowly transform themselves into their own puppet characters – blurring the boundaries between object, subject, and performer. Clarke’s contributions include live manipulation of field recordings, filmic elements, and an improvised harmonium set—evoking a dense, uncanny soundscape.

Belfast International Arts Festival is back for its 63rd edition from 14 October – 9 November 2025!

Experience a brand-new season of world-class theatre, dance, music, visual arts, literature and film, with performances from the very best international artists and homegrown talent.

Over 30 venues across the city will come alive with bold ideas, unforgettable stories, and extraordinary artistry.

Contemporary artist Emma Berkery unveils her deeply moving new exhibition of abstract paintings, which trace the fragile line between hope & despair.
Late Night Art Opening: Thursday, November 6th, 6–9 PM. Wine reception with live music. Exhibition will be opened by acclaimed art historian Isabella Evangelisti.
Public viewing Friday 7th, Saturday 8th and Sunday 10th 11am-4pm and at additional times by appointment until Wednesday 12th November. The exhibition confronts the inherent fragility of existence and the quiet strength that emerges from the human need to hold onto hope.

Vault group exhibition.
For Late Night Art November we present ‘All Welcome’, an exhibition on the theme of ‘Art as Activism’ with a specific focus on challenging the growing and insidious far right narratives around immigration.
We asked artists from the Vault and other studios to respond to this lurch to the right in public discourse. Over forty artists responded with works that span a range of media, from traditional attributes of activism and protest, such as flags, zines, placards and riot shield handles, but also installations, paintings, photographs, embroidery works, prints, paintings, video, workshops, and mixed media pieces.

DANSTOPIA! at PS³  is a solo exhibition, dance performance and theatrical encounter by Reuben Brown. The show proposes a hypothetical framework through which to understand nightlife as both a material and symbolic infrastructure. It examines how architectural, social and affective structures intersect in the production of identity, shared ritual and belonging, and how these structures shift to reveal broader dynamics of power embedded in contemporary culture. 

Exhibition continues from the 9th of October to the 13th of November 2025

QSS is proud to present Underpin, a group exhibition showcasing the work of QSS artists who took part in our pilot internal mentoring programme, generously supported by Belfast City Council. Launched in February 2024, the programme paired emerging QSS studio members with more established peers, fostering an environment of mutual support, skill sharing, and creative development.

Exhibition continues from the 9th of October to the 13th of November 2025

Raw Chicken is a satirical take on the kitsch, blurring the lines between the familiar and the abject. The exhibition centres around the concept of an old curiosity shop as an environment for eclecticism and obsession. The work subverts the familiar, taking domestic materials and ideas and reinstating them in a nonsensical, Dadaist context.

Exhibition continues from the 13th of June to the 4th of January 2026

An exhibition of rarely seen artworks by internationally important Japanese war photographer Akihiko Okamura, documenting his relationship with Ireland during the Troubles. 

From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Japanese war photographer Akihiko Okamura (1929-1985) created a powerful and largely unseen collection of photographs in Ireland, both north and south. 

After covering the Vietnam War, Akihiko Okamura visited Ireland in 1968 drawn by the connection to John F. Kennedy’s family roots. A year later, he moved to Ireland with his own family and stayed until his sudden passing in 1985. During that time, he captured everyday life with his family and the conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles.

Okamura’s photographs have rarely been seen before, and show a unique artistic view of Ireland at this time. What makes his work stand out is that he chose to make Ireland his home. Among all the international photographers working at that time, Okamura stood out for his commitment to the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Since he became so closely connected to what he was photographing, Okamura created innovative images in both his own style and how the Troubles were shown through photography. His profound, personal relationship with Ireland allowed him to develop a new method of documenting conflict: poetic and ethereal moments of peace in a time of war.

Akihiko Okamura: The Memories of Others is now open in Art Gallery 4, Ulster Museum. No booking needed. 

The Memories of Others is a Photo Museum Ireland touring exhibition. Curated by Pauline Vermare, Seán O’Hagan, Masako Toda, Brendan Maher and Trish Lambe, with the support of the Estate of Akihiko Okamura, it premiered at Photo Museum Ireland in 2024. It opened in Belfast during Belfast Photo Festival.

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Golden Thread Gallery is proud to present Radical Hope, a new exhibition developed in collaboration with Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland. Curated from Collection II, one of Poland’s most significant collections of contemporary art, the exhibition offers a timely reflection on uncertainty, resilience, and the transformative potential of art.

Collection II, held by the Arsenal Gallery and shaped under the direction of Monika Szewczyk, traces the evolving landscape of contemporary art in Poland and Eastern Europe over the past three decades. Developed as an ‘open corpus,’ the collection is a living archive: dynamic, growing, and responsive to the shifting narratives of our time.

This exhibition is part of the UK/Poland Season 2025 organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, British Council and Polish Cultural Institute in London, and supported by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Poland.

Exhibition continues from the 13th of September to the 8th of November 2025

Golden Thread Gallery is proud to present Radical Hope, a new exhibition developed in collaboration with Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, Poland. Curated from Collection II, one of Poland’s most significant collections of contemporary art, the exhibition offers a timely reflection on uncertainty, resilience, and the transformative potential of art.

Pollanroe Burn or An Pollán Rua – the little red pool – unfolds through a series of new films and archival fragments, forming part of artist Emily McFarland’s ongoing long-term research into the shifting ecology of the Sperrin Mountains of West Tyrone, in the North of Ireland, in the shadow of proposed major industrial-scale gold extraction. The project asks: How can we cultivate modes of thinking that allow intellect and empathy to apprehend the long-standing and delicate connections between humans and their environments?

Launching: Saturday 27 September 2025 at Void Art Centre, 6-8pm

On display from Thursday 2 October to Thursday 6 November.

Read more: https://www.catalystarts.org.uk/nonstick-frying-pan

Exhibition continues from the 2nd of October to the 6th of November 2025

An exhibition exploring domesticity and the home, featuring work from Alex Keatinge and Niamh Hannaford.

William McKeown made paintings, drawings, prints and installations that captured the openness and life-enhancing power of nature.
Guided by a belief in the primacy of feeling, his paintings often appeared at first to resemble objective minimalism or the monochrome. Yet they offered much more: nature as real and tangible, all around us, something to be touched and felt.
Each painting is slightly off square, undermining the perfection of geometry, and scaled roughly to the size of the human chest, as if mirroring the capacity of our lungs to breathe in air.

Sea Skin features a tactile soft sculpture inspired by the experience of sea swimming and encounters beneath the ocean’s surface.

Drawing from site visits to the islands of West Cork, the textures and colours of the piece reflect the diverse types of seaweed that embrace the coastal landscape.

The installation invites viewers to engage with the textile sculpture, as soft, airy fabrics gently brush against your skin, encouraging tactile exploration through hand-sewn strands.

LAST ACT at The MAC, Belfast is a synchronized video installation by artist Marie Hanlon and composer Rhona Clarke. The work presents climate change as something both real and abstract, as such it mirrors the human response to a changing earth. Visual imagery draws on footage of real weather events, sequences are coordinated to make them different from daily media reportage. Opening and closing sections allude to industry and rise of emission levels following the industrial revolution. Rhona Clarke’s choral music takes its text from the latin poem Dies Irae, referencing the final judgement.

Belfast International Arts Festival is back for its 63rd edition from 14 October – 9 November 2025!

Experience a brand-new season of world-class theatre, dance, music, visual arts, literature and film, with performances from the very best international artists and homegrown talent.

Over 30 venues across the city will come alive with bold ideas, unforgettable stories, and extraordinary artistry.

‘Contemporary Art of Northern Ireland #6’ continues to present and celebrate accomplished artists based in the region. The art selection on display has been curated to reflect the diversity and originality of their creativity with numerous artworks encompassing vibrant abstracts, atmospheric landscape paintings, works inspired by the beauty of nature, intriguing figures, exquisite glass art, textile gems, and remarkable sculptures.

Featuring over 20 artists represented by Gallery 545.

Opening reception – Saturday 25 October 2-4 pm
Exhibition Tour – Saturday 8 November 2pm

Exhibition continues from the 9th of October to the 13th of November 2025

Raw Chicken is a satirical take on the kitsch, blurring the lines between the familiar and the abject. The exhibition centres around the concept of an old curiosity shop as an environment for eclecticism and obsession. The work subverts the familiar, taking domestic materials and ideas and reinstating them in a nonsensical, Dadaist context.

Exhibition continues from the 9th of October to the 13th of November 2025

QSS is proud to present Underpin, a group exhibition showcasing the work of QSS artists who took part in our pilot internal mentoring programme, generously supported by Belfast City Council. Launched in February 2024, the programme paired emerging QSS studio members with more established peers, fostering an environment of mutual support, skill sharing, and creative development.

Strule Arts Centre is delighted to announce the opening of Connection, a solo exhibition by Buncrana-based artist Veronica Buchanan, launching at 7pm on Thursday 30 October in the Gallery at Strule Arts Centre, Omagh.

In Connection, Veronica explores themes of personal experience, relationships, memory, and reflection—concepts that evoke emotional responses and invite viewers to engage on a deeply human level. The exhibition presents a compelling collection of both earlier and recent works, showcasing a variety of media including drawing, painting, ceramics, and textiles.

DANSTOPIA! at PS³  is a solo exhibition, dance performance and theatrical encounter by Reuben Brown. The show proposes a hypothetical framework through which to understand nightlife as both a material and symbolic infrastructure. It examines how architectural, social and affective structures intersect in the production of identity, shared ritual and belonging, and how these structures shift to reveal broader dynamics of power embedded in contemporary culture. 

Exhibition continues from the 1st of November to the 28th of November 2025

Saturday 1 November, 2-4pm – Opening with talks and music performance.

‘Materials, Messages and Meaning #14’ features Lydia Bell, Michael Geddis, Patricia Kelly, Ruth Osbourne and Ioana Petcu-Colan, five visual artists selected from our annual open call, each responding to the theme ‘experimental’. The group exhibition presents the work of these five artists, allowing its ‘experimental’ nature to emerge through their diverse approaches – in the materials they choose to work with, the messages and meaning they convey through those materials, and the processes they employ to make their work.