Group show 'What do we want?' going places. Next, Belfast!

So much has been happening with our exhibition 'What do we want?' that it is difficult to know where to begin.

Well, for a start, the singer Mary Black opened the exhibition on the 9th of April on Frances Black's kind request as Frances was marooned on Rathlin Ireland on that stormy night.

Then, of course we should mention the fact that Jill Gibbon's work did not make it despite the artist's best efforts: Both her sketchbook and series of gifts (desktop toys collected at arms fairs) were refused entry to Ireland by Irish Customs. The artist was subsequently thwarted in her attempt to send -in an envelope by post- a facsimile version of her sketchbook: this item was also refused entry to this country. We have been able though to show these sketches through a slideshow in the gallery and we printed and framed Ricky Adam's 'beautiful' photographs of the gifts collected by the artist. The artist is now waiting for Irish Customs to get back to her with a clear explanation as to why they prevented her work from entering Ireland. We won't draw conclusions just yet.

We are of course very grateful to Gemma Tipton who highlighted Jill's practice and the fate of her work in a great article in the Irish Times. We are equally grateful to other members of the press for including the show in their listing: The Irish Arts Review magazine, Penny McCormick in The Gloss and Philipp Carton in The Business Post. We should also mention a very interesting article by Eamon Rafter in Rebel. Eoin Mac Lochlainn, whose piece 'Wall of tears' has moved so many visitors todate, has been writing a series of blogs related to this exhibition. You can also read Gail Ritchie's blog entry here.

We have been delighted at the great level of interest expressed by some schools and the great engagement shown by their art students when visiting the exhibition. A big thank you to Martina Leddy and her class at Belvedere College and Margaret McLoughlin and her students at Maryfield College. We should also mention the visit by The Friends of the RHA and the many great conversations about the show with other visitors such as Peter Fitzgerald from dnote and Christina Kennedy from IMMA. We were very happy to see Christina's comment 'Powerful and so timely' in our guest book.

We are now very excited to announce that the exhibition will be shown at QSS Artist Studios & Gallery from the 8th of August to the 5th of September 2024. Congratulations to all four artists, namely Jill Gibbon, Eoin Mac Lochlainn, Tom Molloy and Gail Ritchie.

Please visit the exhibition page 'What do we want?' for more information and come to see the show which has been extended to run until the 31st of May 2024.