REVIEWS AND PUBLICATIONS
Selected Reviews and Articles
Engine Room dishes the dirt in the name of Artt work
The charming Eamonn Homes, television presenter and occasional binman would have been the appropriate star to open painter William Artt’s one-man show at the Newtownards Road’s Engine Room Gallery
.
Titled ‘Nothing I can Say' it runs until the end of the month.
For William, who says yes Artt really is my name and that he impresses American buyers by explaining that he is descended from the High Kings of Ireland, has put up a notice explaining the works in the show.
They are inspired, he writes, by the fact that ‘the city is not clean’. After reading that, if you hadn’t spotted it already you’d soon realise, agreed fellow artist Robin Cordiner and Arts Council executive Suzanne Lyle that Will’s geometric patterns do remind you of the city’s mess.
Here’s a double yellow line crossed by the black rubber of tyre tracks. There’s an oil smudged yellow warning tape of a contractor’s dig, beside it the red diagonals on a builder’s skip, the scruffy yellow chequerboard of a box junction at crossroads, the zig-zags near school gates.
William’s next show will be in Berlin along with fellow artists Acitore Artezione, Deirdre Robb and Laura Hughes.
HILL, IAN. Man About Town, "Engine Room dishes the dirt in name of Artt Work, Belfast Telegraph, Monday January 24th, 2005 p.8
William Artt:Dead Flat Matt
Having worked in DIY superstores mixing sumptuously titled household colours, Artt is a painter who purports to offer paintings about painting, but could just as easily be mixing a colourful joke about the intoxification of consumerism. His slick MDF panels in bilberry-lilac, wisteria and damson entitled 'Silk Cut' aspires to pay homage to Sean Scully, while Boogie Nights- three panels in Flame Red, Moonshine Blue and Zingy Yellow - make curious reference to Mondrian. A pleasing if unusual show.
WESTON, GAVIN."William Artt:Dead Flat Matt", Reviews (Northern Ireland), The Culture Section, The Sunday Times, 26th September, 1999, p.25
Reviews: Colourful Artt will leave observers curious
No doubt William Artt is used by now to people saying how apt his name is for his chosen craft as a painter.
No doubt too that many who have seen his work before will now recognise an Artt when they see one. For, working out of the Creative Exchange Studios on the Castlereagh Road, his last solo show, in a corridor in the Ulster Hospital, consisted of what, in a hurry to comfort your sick grannie, you might have thought were a series of paint manufacturer's colour charts, but were in fact a diverting take on the Last Supper with Judas represented as The Snitch in Diamond Black.
Now William is back for another hanging east of the Lagan with a solo exhibition in the Engine Room Gallery, part of whose theme is a homage to great painters.
At the hospital his images were square, here they are rectangular with a white band along the bottom to leave room for the colour title. Thus, Home consists of two separate rectangles labelled as, and consisting of, Wild Sage and Peppermint.
Close to You (After Sean Scully) is a vertical table of seven reds ranging from Chintz at the top to California Poppy at the base.
The Living End (After Mark Rothko) has three painted colours, Loganberry, Winchester and Wild Rose.
Boogie Nights (After Mondrian) has Flame Red, Moonstone and Yellow ranged geometrically. The end result is indeed diverting. Witty is another word you could use.
Until September 25.
HILL, IAN.'Colourful Artt will leave observers curious', Reviews: The News Letter, 17th September, 1999
Review: Artt-istic approach to the Apostles
William Artt, thus suitably named, picked up his Ernest Anderson Bursary from Castlereagh Council and set off to sojourn in a residency at Annamakerrig.
There he evaluated his artistic practice, took his inspiration purely from colour and decided to turn to a conceptual formula.
You can park for 50p in the car park of the Ulster Hospital, walk past reception and there, first right, in a corridor, hangs the outcome of his internal debate, called Communion.
Its origins are to be found in the paintings, particularly Champaigne's, of The Last Supper.
But Artt's approach is, as he advised, conceptual and the work consists of a row of thirteen identically sized squares, each in a different colour, each of twelve representing the individual Apostles, the 13th being Christ.
Ulster Hospital, Dundonald, until July 9
HILL, IAN. 'Artt-istic approach to the Apostles', Reviews: The News Letter, July 8th, 1999
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND CATALOGUES
2008 Arts Council for Northern Ireland-Acquisitions- Catalogue of recent acquisitions, Arts Council for Northern Ireland, Belfast, 2008
2007 Paintings, Sculpture, Fine Craft & Original Prints, Auction Catalogue, Ross's Auctions, May 2007
2004 Through Our Eyes: Through Our Eyes Exhibition Catalogue,The Painting Center/Green Dog Arts, New York, September, 2006
2005 Belfast Telegraph Feature: Monday January 24th, 2005 p.8
2004 Creative Exchange: Studio Artists Catalogue, Creative Exchange, Belfast, 2004
Ulster Tatler: Here and Now exhibition article, Ulster Tatler, Novenber, 2004
1999 Fresh: Exhibition Catalogue for Fresh exhibition (curated by William Artt) Engine Room Gallery, September, 1999
Glimpse: Exhibition Catalogue for touring group exhibition, Queens Street Studios, Belfast, May 1999
Sunday Times: Reviews (Northern Ireland), The Culture Section, The Sunday Times, 26th September, 1999, p.25
State of the Art Exhibition Catalogue for State of the Art Milennium Exhibition, Engine Room Gallery, Belfast, N. Ireland
1994 Sunday Life: Article on Positive Thinking Exhibition, November, 1994
1994 Belfast Herald and Post: Artcile on opening exhibition at Space Studios, Belfast, May 1994