The Golden Thread Gallery was delighted to host Irish artist Niamh O’Malley in our main space after the hugely successful tour of Gather; Ireland at Venice 2022.

Gather by Niamh O’Malley was the national representation of Ireland at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by the Temple Bar Gallery + Studios. O’Malley’s exhibition for Golden Thread Gallery, Gather Belfast, was informed by her work for the Venice Biennale, but also explored the breadth of O’Malley’s recent practice. O’Malley had lived in Belfast for nearly 10 years and this was an important opportunity for her to return to the city and exhibit her work in the place where she spent formative years and began her career as an artist.

The works selected for Gather, Belfast took account of the particular qualities of the large industrial spaces of the Golden Thread Gallery. The steel rods supporting sculptural objects had to be navigated, forcing us to move around and in-between. The placement of the pieces split and divided the space with sculptural interventions. They encouraged us to consider the space again, from new angles and through different, reconsidered frames.

O’Malley’s sculptures lay on the gallery floor and stretched up towards its ceiling using simple, often familiar forms and materials including wood and glass. In her Post series, tall steel stands located and positioned us as we moved around them. In the video projection Glasshouse, the long corridor-like gallery space echoed the doubled landscape unfolding past its tracking cameras.

O’Malley’s moving image works were silent and rhythmic. Vent filled an entire LED screen with a single, looped movement of flapping louvers, opening, closing – breathing. Her sculptures also hinted at functional objects, familiar architectural structures and physical support systems like handles and shelters and trays. She hoped that we – in our frantic, moving, complicated selves – might just have taken some time to pause, breathe, and encounter and query their presence.

The recent programme at the Golden Thread Gallery provided the opportunity to consider contemporary language and how it was used in the description and interpretation of art. This exhibition by Niamh O’Malley invited us to slow down and to reflect with balance and, crucially, without language barriers, in that place, at that time.