Siobhan Hapaska: Downfall

24th September 2010 – 6th November 2010

Siobhán Hapaska was born in Belfast in 1963. She is a graduate of Goldsmith’s College, London (1992) and has consistently exhibited in major exhibitions internationally including Documenta X (1997); Venice Biennale (2001) and Magasin 3 Stockholm (2000). This is the first major exhibition of her work in her native city and will include a combination of new and recent works.

Her art practice is multilayered and feelings of uncertainty, restlessness and change have marked her work. Certain binary conditions such as nature and artifice; presence and absence; life and death have preoccupied the artist in the past. This exhibition, inter alia, will engage with the lingering theme of dislocation and loss of instinct as explored in recent works.

She has said of her practice – ‘Uncertainty in my work is very important to me. I’m really not interested in definitive explanations of things – I find certainty so claustrophobic’.

Siobhán Hapaska’s work is charged with a number of cultural and socio-political issues and this Belfast exhibition will open up for assessment the extent to which biography/identity have been underpinning its development. ‘Downfall’ was curated by Liam Kelly