Sara Cunningham-Bell: CONGRUENT

8 June – 2 September 2024

The F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council are delighted to present Congruent, a new body of work by sculptor Sara Cunningham-Bell. Based in her studio on the North Coast of Ireland, Cunningham-Bell works with storm-felled local timber including larch, maple, beach and oak, combined with upcycled lead and steel, GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic), concrete and bronze. Made through a variety of processes including carving, casting, sanding and staining, Cunningham-Bell’s sculptures often reveal the layered traces of their creation.

Congruent means a coming together in agreement or harmony and Cunningham-Bell’s approach is to juxtapose seemingly disparate elements and materials to create forms that demand our attention. Her sculptures explore the domesticity of objects alongside their materiality and the processes that inform and form them.

Speaking of this new body of sculpture Sara said,

In the seventeenth century, philosopher Nicolas Malebranche called attention ‘the natural prayer of the soul’. In the twentieth century, novelist Iris Murdoch spoke of attentiveness as a way of deepening ‘experience to such a degree that a change of consciousness can be achieved’. Our indifference is exposed, interrupted, and challenged. To induce such a remembering, these sculptures are conceived to perpetually provoke attention.

Sara Cunningham-Bell has created public sculpture for sites throughout Ireland and her work is currently on view at the Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park in North Yorkshire, Drenagh Gardens, Limavady and Chongqing, China. She is a member of the Visual Artists Ireland and Society of Scottish Artists.

Instagram: @Artist.CunninghamBell

Scottish Women Artists: 250 Years of Challenging Perceptions

8 June to 2 September 2024

The F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council are delighted to present Scottish Women Artists: 250 Years of Challenging Perceptions. Bringing together the work of over 40 artists from The Fleming Collection, with additional loans from National Museums Northern Ireland and the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Trust, this exhibition highlights key women artists who have changed society’s view of what women should and could do, and the significance of work by women artists in Scotland’s cultural history.

Women have been shaping artistic communities in Scotland for well over 250 years. However, the deep-rooted legal, political and financial constraints of a male dominated society, denied countless women the opportunity to seek or develop an artistic career. Scottish Women Artists foregrounds those women who successfully challenged contemporary expectations and artistic norms to shape the story of Scottish art from the eighteenth century to the present day.

Today, Scottish art covers a huge variety of creativity and approaches towards what art is, and women play a crucial role in this network. For this reason, some may argue that all women exhibitions are no longer needed, and yet the legacy of neglect in museums, academies and publications experienced by women, still has a knock-on effect today. Seen in another light, this is an exhibition that tells the story of Scottish art through artworks that just happen to have been created by women.

Free Entry