Flowerfield Arts Centre is delighted to present ‘Uncertain Landscapes’ - a new exhibition by Northern Ireland born contemporary artists Heather McAteer and Alex Dewart.
This free exhibition opens on Saturday 18th February, with the artists taking part in a talk at 11.30am before the official public launch event at 1pm.
The Mayor of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council, Councilor Ivor Wallace said: “I am delighted that Council’s Arts Service has brought this exciting exhibition to Flowerfield Arts Centre and it’s wonderful to see that the artists behind these works, originally from Northern Ireland, have chosen to display their work here in the Borough.”
While both Heather and Alex have lived in the south of England for several decades, their birthplace continues to inform their work. In ‘Uncertain Landscapes’, both artists use compositions in different ways to communicate distance and alienation. Their works depict lonely landscapes and windowless, unwelcoming houses – the landscapes are never benign. They entwine with beauty in our minds but hold an unsettling undercurrent of difficult histories. They are the site of precarious balance between humans and nature, and the works inhabit this uneasy space between natural and manmade, imaginary, and real.
Free tickets for the artists’ talk on February 18th can be booked at www.flowerfield.org or ring 028 70813 1400 while the launch event is open to all.
The exhibition will run until Saturday 25th March.
About the Artists
Heather McAteer
Spent her formative teenage years in 1980s Belfast, her work draws upon her childhood experiences of growing up on a housing estate which had previously been an area of parkland. From her bedroom window she could see untouched wooded areas which present as reoccurring motifs of vegetation, fences and trees overlooked in her art.
The artist’s feelings of allure and fear evoked by this mysterious territory are tied to her desire for freedom and autonomy during her teenage years, surrounded by the turbulence of Northern Ireland conflict. Using the tonal possibilities of graphite to create a psychological darkness, her works depict unpopulated spaces infused with a melancholic sense of loss and absence.
Alex Dewart
As a teenager growing up in County Antrim in the 1970s, Dewart’s experiences were of the dramatic beauty of the landscape juxtaposed with the fear and violence of the Troubles. Her artworks reflect that dichotomy; exploring landscapes that are physical and metaphorical – which both entice and trouble the viewer.
Working with vivid colour, gesture and pattern, her works see repetition of images and ideas until every possible meaning and angle has been reviewed. Taking cues from other art forms such as Japanese print and animation, and textile and wallpaper design, her landscapes reference beautiful but also surreal places.
