About The Exhibition
Belfast Exposed is excited to announce the latest exhibition in our Streetview installation, This Hurts a project by Belfast based artist Audrey Gillespie.
Gillespie's work explores obsession, release and fantasy, and documents the lived experiences of queer youth in Northern Ireland. A deeply personal piece of work, This Hurts also engages with wider issues of identity and belonging in Northern Ireland. Using analogue photographic methods and a 35mm format, the viewer is immersed into a world of 'bleared emotions' as Gillespie documents the community of young, LGBT+ people in Northern Ireland that surrounds her.
This Hurts will be on display from 22nd July to 3rd September 2022. In addition, we will be hosting an artist talk on Thursday 1st September, where Gillespie will discus the work and her inspiration further.
'Streetview is an ideal space for new, emerging and experimental artists to show their work to the public and we are delighted to see Audrey Gillespie's This Hurts there this summer. It is a work that brims with energy and shows viewers a part of Northern Irish life that many will not have previously experienced or interacted with, as well as being a prime example of how creatively analogue photography can be used to tell stories in this digital era'
Deirdre Robb, CEO of Belfast Exposed.
The Artists
Audrey Gillespie
Audrey Gillespie is an Irish fine artist from Derry, Northern Ireland. Currently living and creating in Belfast. Her media include analogue photography, painting and printmaking. Gillespie's themes explore queerness, mortality and conflict with youth and anxiety in her current series 'This Hurts'.
Gillespie has been awarded Best Emerging Artist by AVA Festival granting an artist a feature in Dazed Digital. She was shortlisted for Vogue Talent 2019 where she met with Edward Enninful at Vogue House, coming in 2nd place. She won the public vote in ‘Fine Art/ Photography’ with i-D x Arts Thread’s Global Design Graduate Showcase 2020, was nominated by Photo Ireland to join the FUTURES Photography Platform (2021) and graduated in 2020 with first class honours in Fine Art BA Degree from Ulster University, Belfast School of Art.
So far in 2022, Gillespie has been exhibited in the Crawford Gallery, Cork and in Common Market, Belfast, with upcoming exhibitions to be held in Dublin Castle as part of Photo Ireland Festival 2022, with Preus Museum Norway for Photography Day in August and with future solo shows at Seen Fifteen Gallery (Peckham) in November/October and with Photo Ireland as part of New Irish Works held in The Library Project, February 2023.
Events
1st September 2022 | 19:00 | Belfast Exposed
Acknowledgements
'This Hurts' at Belfast Exposed is generously supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council.