Late Night Art:
Thursday 4 February, 6-9pm
Private view:
Friday 5th February, 6-8pm
Exhibition closes:
Saturday 14 February
PS² opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturday, 12-5pm
Silver Plough
Kirsty Bell
About the exhibition:
This exhibition is the first of two shows, a new body of work by Kirsty Bell that marks the end point in her Freelands Studio Fellowship at Ulster University. The Freelands Studio Fellowship is an annual programme that places eight artists in studios within partner universities across the UK, fostering a symbiotic relationship between teaching and artistic practice. The second show will be held within the University in March.
This is also the first exhibition in our new ground-floor Project Space at 13 Rosemary Street, and we’d love to show you around. Join us on Friday 6th February from 6pm for a soft launch and a celebratory tipple!
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Wallace Stevens: ‘The Emperor of Ice Cream’. The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954).
About the artist:
Kirsty Bell is a visual artist from Scotland and graduate of Gray’s School of Art. Works hover between presence and absence; images that seem to resist full recognition. Bell’s paintings strive for a proximity but never quite reaches an ultimate conclusion. Her work seeks to generate elusive, shape-shifting images. Kirsty Bell was awarded the Freelands Painting Prize Winner in 2023, Florence Scholarship award 2023, RSA New Contemporaries 2024, RSA John Kinross, RSA Arusha Gallery Prize 2024, RSA Benno Schotz Prize 2025, Shortlisted Ingram Prize 2025 and is currently at the Belfast School of Art as the Freelands Foundation Studio Fellow for 2025-26.
