Stuart Cairns’ solo exhibition ‘What was seen, what was found there’ takes place at Island Arts Centre, October 7 – October 28.

Stuart graduated with a Bachelors degree In Silversmithing & Jewellery from Ulster University in 2000, returning to complete a Masters degree in 2006. He is also a member of the British Designer Silversmiths and a part-time lecturer at Ulster University.

Describing his work, Stuart says: “My studio practice is not just about the landscape, but the experience of being within it, of being part of it. The walking, the collecting and even the swimming is about immersion, of feeling fully connected as part of the ecosystem relating to the tides, the seasons and the swoop of seagull equally. This is what I explore through the richness of materiality planted within the forms of domestic objects of silversmithing to reference the daily experience of being human”.

About the exhibition:

Things speak, through form, through raw materiality. A language that tells you, you know this, you’ve seen this before – in wanderings, in dreams, in all those other places sitting at the fringes of memories you’ve almost forgotten.

This is a collection of objects, the made and the found, alongside images, drawn and recorded, exploring the landscape as an imagined space. Objects and paintings set out showing you what you might have seen or what might be waiting out there, ready to be remembered.