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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Exhibition continues from the 4th of September to the 31st of October 2025

In her exhibition, open for Late Night Art Belfast this Thursday 4 September, Alexander interprets Aristotle’s imagining the cosmos as 56 celestial spheres by creating a series of acrylic sketches on linen. Each fragment invites a shift in perspective, exploring in-between spaces, identity beyond the body, and our place in the universe – a constellation of moments that ask who we are, and how we find meaning.

Jennifer Alexander is a visual artist and curator from Scotland, currently based in Northern Ireland. Her practice investigates the interplay between perception and stratification.

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.

Exhibition Launch: Saturday 13th September at 12 noon

Based in Sligo, Lorna Watkins is a multi-disciplinary visual artist. She studied Printed Textile Design in NCAD and is a recipient of a Ballinglen Fellowship. Her exhibition Tend/er features painting, printmaking and sculpture exploring ideas around the home, overlooked everyday objects, motherhood and ageing. She often references the body, as life drawing has been a constant in her practice over the past decade.

In 2024 Watkins was selected for the John Richardson French Residency Award and in 2020, JOYA AiR, Spain. She is a recipient of the Arts Council Agility Award; ADI Training Award and Thomas Damann Travel Bursary and her works are part of several public and private collections including the Ulster Hospital and Ballinglen Arts Foundation.

Flaxen is a collection of new works by Alice Fox, exploring the flax plant at every stage: from whole dried stems to unspun fibre. The works are woven or otherwise constructed to highlight the plant’s strength and delicacy, resulting in textured, structural pieces across different scales. Opening Reception and a chance to meet the artist: Saturday 27 September, 2–4pm, all welcome

The exhibition will include an online artist talk on 14 October 2025 at 6pm (book via eventbrite)

Gallery Opening Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 5pm

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

Carol describes this exhibition as

“This collection birthed as an exhilarating rush of visual stories.  Begun around the mid-winter Solstice they took ragged forms in intense blues, purples, crimsons, with rich bronze and gold. They explore something of the dark and dusks of winter when the dog becomes the wolf”.

Her work is held in private collections, public institutions, businesses and galleries across the UK, Ireland, USA, South Africa and Australia.

On display from Thursday 2 October to Thursday 6 November.

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

Sometimes a painting evokes a feeling or a memory that the viewer cannot always bring to mind.

While Laura Butler and Audrey Kyle have very different artistic styles and use different mediums, they share a vision in the sense of being preoccupied with a world beyond the present moment. Often, they are drawn to depicting scenes in the same places but produce their own unique interpretations. Audrey explores through a deep connection with the natural world, a strong sense of the mythical, mystical and folklore. Laura’s pursuit in her landscape paintings is to honour the spirit of the lives of people, and the traces their presence leaves on the landscape.

The exhibition will be on display from Friday 3rd until Friday 31st October 2025, and includes Saturday opening on 11th October. Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 10.00am – 4.00pm.

Exhibition continues from the 2nd of October to the 25th of October 2025

Confluence – a Shore Collective group exhibition
Thur 2 – Sat 25 October 2025
Opening hours Mon – Sat, 9:30am – 5:00 pm

The exhibition theme pivots around an intersectional narrative focusing on social and ecological concerns. ‘Confluence’ traces how the River Strule influences Omagh and how humans have affected the waters essence, flow and course. These environmental, cultural, and creative themes narrate the river’s meeting point with the rivers Camowen and Drumragh. The exhibition views how the three rivers move to enhance local identity and are crucial arteries for wildlife.

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.