The Stars Looks Down

18th of october – 1st of december 2001

This exhibition showcased a diverse selection of new works from 7 rising artists based in Northern Ireland, with machines and inventions, sushi, film, paint, drawing, exploring our fears and paranoia’s, food, dating and the stuff we trow out featuring:

Michiko Okuyama completed an AM in Applied Arts in June 2001. Using screen print, paper, sculpture, pop up boxes, origami and real sushi her work explored her own relationship to her native Japan, and employs the distinctive colours and patterns inherent in its culture.

Paddy Bloomer is currently at the workshop collective. Using industrial and domestic mechanical waste;society s waste Paddy makes machines. He explores the fallacy of invention and inventors as well as notions of consumer waste. Deliberately employing dysfunctional mechanisms give his inventions an unpredictable, chaotic will of their own, often prone to spectacular and dangerous self destruction.

Diane Wilson graduated from the University of Ulster in 2000 she works with super 8 film, found junk and natural materials and is concerned with social highs and lows. Using animation and film stills she showed a short drama about dating.

Mark Taylor makes paintings depicting dogs, these intense images are worked from video footage and snapshots. They explore our preconceived psychological fears of the animal as well as the manipulation of reality into fiction.

Nicky Keogh graduated in 2000 from U.W.E in Bristol, he is interested in our place between nature and technological age of media mayhem tat we live in. A previous project involved manufacturing a device that enabled small fish to explore trees.

Duncan Ross is another 2000 graduate, from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee. Previous projects have included the creation of his own Contemporary Art Center. Confused about the difference between art and the other things he sees. This manifestation will took the form of another ‘wall drawing’.

Simon McBride graduated from the University of Ulster in 2000. His work mainly deals with the notion of process, although at the same time his pieces take on a high degree of ‘closure’. They therefore questioned the notion of the finished piece of art.