RUA-nited and it feels so good: The Royal Ulster Academy exhibition returns for 143rd show
By Lucy Hughes
Art students looking for coursework material, the middle-class middle-aged, bored college students who want to look interesting – hear ye, hear ye! The RUA exhibition is back!
Since 1879 the Royal Ulster Academy of Art has remained the largest established body of practising visual artists within Northern Ireland. Their founding principles are to, “organise, promote or join in organising and promoting in any fashion an Annual Exhibition of work by both members and non–members” (UlsterMuseum.org, 2024). Every year the Royal Ulster Academy exhibits pieces by both members and non-members in the Ulster Museum’s Art Spotlight space, and this year, its 143rd, is no different. All forms of artwork are on show, from painting, printmaking and drawing, to mixed-media sculpture and video installation, and catalogues of the artwork are available in the exhibition space for £10 each (in case you fall in love with a piece and don’t happen to have the three grand on you to take it home – such is the tragedy of life).
Some personal favourites from the exhibition are The Commonplace by Leah Davis, a 170cm tall graphite, charcoal and oil piece on canvas, whose chaotic composition, sparse colouration and kinetic brushwork create a gorgeous sense of emotion within the frantic everyday; Ginny Page’s Forget Me Not, a beautifully detailed little oil painting of the titular flowers in a medicine bottle, surrounded by crisply-rendered butterflies, like a Rachel Ruysch painting and a 19th-century apothecary’s shop had a magnificent child together; and the marvellously unsettling The Buoys stoneware and porcelain sculpture by Claire Gibson – weathered buoys and baby dolls’ heads, together at last!
The exhibition is full of exceptional pieces of art, all free to see, and on display until the 6th of January. I highly recommend giving the RUA exhibition a visit, or if you are unable to attend in person, checking it out virtually via the website, where pieces are also available for purchase (https://www.royalulsteracademy.org/viewing-room/3-143rd-royal-ulster-academy-annual-exhibition/). While you’re over there, some of the museum’s own pieces, including some of its John Lavery collection and its two Breughel paintings, are back on display in the galleries around the RUA space after a short time away, and are also well worth a visit.
This December, the museum are also offering introductory guided tours, artist spotlights and masterclasses:
December Tours
Sat 7th Dec at 14:30 – Cara Gordon ARUA
Sat 7th Dec at 15:30 – Gerry Leneghan Spanish language tour
Sat 14th Dec at 14:30 – Simon McWilliams RUA
Artist Spotlights
Fri 6th Dec – Olya Duka
Fri 13th Dec – Simon McWilliams RUA
Masterclasses
Saturday 7th Dec – Ciaran Gallagher ARUA – ‘Painting a Portrait from Life in Oils’
References
Ulstermuseum.org. (2024). RUA Annual Exhibition. [online] Available at: https://www.ulstermuseum.org/whats-on/rua-annual-exhibition [Accessed 5 Dec. 2024].
