Collaboration

As part of our long-standing collaboration we’re delighted to present a showcase of exceptional Irish crafts with our friends at the Bluecoat Display Centre. This year’s exhibition there, highlights the rich cultural heritage of Ireland through the works of emerging and established makers. Our partnership continues to celebrate the profound connection between Ireland and Liverpool, a city with deep Irish roots.

In the Window

Alongside sculptural wood and furniture for our In the Window exhibit by Michael Murphy, we’re showcasing a collection of Irish makers that have previously exhibited In the Window during previous Liverpool Irish Festivals. This is an opportunity for us to highlight the work of our established Irish makers whose work we regularly display in the gallery.

Additionally, we’re excited to introduce a group of makers from Northern Ireland, selected from the Reaction exhibition at the Craft Northern Ireland gallery in Belfast. The event is a highlight of the much-anticipated month-long celebration of craft, which takes place across the island of Ireland in August, to celebrate and profile excellence in the Northern Irish craft sector.

Craft Northern Ireland

“We’re grateful to Liverpool Irish Festival for continuing to include craft in its programme and for recognising the significance of this art form. And to Bluecoat Display Centre for their commitment to showcasing work from the island of Ireland as part of the Festival. For makers, having work shown at the Centre is a prestigious milestone, introducing their work to empathic audiences as well as new collectors in Britain for whom the Display Centre’s reputation will resonate.

“For emerging makers it’s an important opportunity to step into a wider market and new possibilities, and being able to show in the northwest builds on deeply-felt connections, and possibly a shared understanding of the unique context and vernacular of the craft makers’ work. We celebrate these enduring links and welcome the opportunity for makers to demonstrate the range of contemporary craft flourishing in Ireland north and south. [This partnership] helps these ties continue to flourish”.

Katherine McDonald, Director, Craft Northern Ireland.

Blended techniques

Irish craft is renowned for its blend of traditional techniques and contemporary innovation. The makers featured in this exhibition exemplify the diversity and excellence of Irish design and making.

Jewellery

Featuring jewellery by established makers Alan Ardiff, Berina Kelly, Maureen Lynch, Celine Traynor and emerging talents Niamh Grimes (last year’s In the Window artist) and Caitlin Murphy. Caitlin is an award winning Northern Irish maker who graduated from the Glasgow School of Art (2022) with first class honours in silversmithing and jewellery. Her most recent success is being named the Retail Jeweller’s Emerging Jeweller of the Year 2024 and having two pieces purchased for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s permanent collection. Caitlin is a third-generation silversmith with a passion for challenging boundaries through making, creating and designing. By folding and working with metal as if it is paper, she achieves unique sculptural jewellery pieces, using an innovative combination of sterling silver and woven niobium.

Ceramics

Also on display, are ceramics by established makers Mike Byrne, Adam Frew, Christy Keeney and emerging maker Corinne Price. Corinne, a recent graduate on the HND Ceramics course at Belfast Metropolitan College, is a Northern Ireland-based ceramicist with a background in fine art. She grew up under the open skies of the Dee Estuary in the northwest of England. Primarily using pigmented porcelain, Corinne produces both functional and decorative sculptural vessels. Employing a variety of techniques, including nerikomi, neriage, hand-building and wheel throwing, Corinne strives to express complexity in simple form. Colour, light, rhythm, pattern and repetition inform her work, supplying endless possibilities for new combinations. Material experimentation is an important evolution within Corinne’s work. It leads to the discovery of exciting textural combinations that can twin with the smoothness and strength of colour that porcelain offers.

Multi- and mixed- media

Other exhibitors include glass by Scott Benefield, turned wood and resin vessels by Kathleen Walsh, mixed media wall pieces by Sarah Cathers and vessels by Joanne Lamb. Joanne is a London-based Irish artist specialising in woven textiles, often incorporating basketry techniques to create one off artworks. She recently graduated with an MA in textiles from the Royal College of Art. Joanne is driven by the desire to connect with and preserve the beauty of nature. By tuning into the seasons, she hopes to communicate what the planet has given us and inspire a deeper appreciation of the natural world. Her intention is that her work will point the way to a fairer and greener world, whilst providing a harmonious space for rest and contemplation to take place.

Glass

A graduate in glass from the National College of Art and Design (Dublin), Catherine Keenan works in molten glass, adding layers of colour and blowing vessels. Catherine’s won several awards at the National Craft Competition, including first place in glass. She has exhibited throughout the UK and Ireland, including the Bluecoat Display Centre, Heal’s Store (London), the National Craft Gallery (Kilkenny), Royal Ulster Academy and the Royal Hibernian Academy’s annual exhibitions. Catherine was our selected In the Window artist for the 2016 Liverpool Irish Festival.

Paintings

In addition to these creative makers, we are proud to show the paintings of Clement McAleer. McAleer was based in studios at The Bluecoat for 25-years, before returning to Ireland and establishing a studio in Belfast (2003). Primarily landscapes, McAleer’s work aims not to depict the particularities of place, but rather the restless, shifting aspects of nature where cloud or water, land or sea transform themselves — atmospherically — one into another. The Irish coast is a dominate source and the memory of it lurks everywhere in the studio.

Celebrating nature

Collectively, these artworks are humble prompts for reconsidering sustainability and equity in our relations with the natural world. By viewing the world as a gift, and by giving people a moment to be in nature through art, it invites viewers to care for it and foster more community and reciprocity. We invite you to visit and consider your part in this ecosystem before it, too, departs.

People stopping in to the gallery for this, should also take in the In The Window work of Michael ‘Muck’ Murphy and his article, here.