{"id":8052,"date":"2014-09-24T14:04:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=8052"},"modified":"2014-09-24T14:04:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:04:40","slug":"bill-kirk-exhibition-at-sync-space-for-aspects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2014\/09\/bill-kirk-exhibition-at-sync-space-for-aspects\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Kirk Exhibition at Sync Space for Aspects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exclusive Preview of Bill Kirk\u2019s Exhibition of Iconic Images<\/em><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a>This Friday, September 26th<\/sup>, as part of The Aspects Irish Literature Festival, Glenn Patterson will host the opening of this remarkable exhibition hosted by celebrated and iconic Newtownards-born photographer Bill Kirk, at Sync Space, Dufferin Court, Bangor.<\/p>\n

Bill was among the vanguard of local photographers who, while global documentary photography was focused firmly on the \u2018Troubles,\u2019 offered a more complex and heartfelt perspective on Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

Kirk\u2019s life has been shaped by two major passions \u2013 cycling and photography.\u00a0 Cycling became a powerful and motivating force following the early deaths of Kirk\u2019s parents due to TB. It was his own life-threatening battle with illness, alongside his redundancy as a draughtsman at Short\u2019s, that prompted Bill to study photography at Belfast\u2019s Art College. He was driven, he says, \u2018by a na\u00efve belief that photography could make a difference.\u2019<\/p>\n

As conflict erupted in the north, Bill says; \u201cThere was a lot of anxiety; everybody was anxious. We were in a fog, not knowing where we were going.\u2019 The approach he brought to his art was inspired by photographers such as Lewis Wickes Hine (whose documentary photography helped bring about a change in American child labour laws), by Robert Frank and, of course, by Cartier Bresson. This dual commitment to social and aesthetic responsibility lies behind a body of work which is steeped in a sense of common humanity, whether its subjects are eminent local figures or random instants of life. Bill\u2019s portraits are warm, perspective, and sometimes funny.<\/p>\n

His streetscapes of Belfast at times recall images of Paris or Chicago. His perspective was a fresh one; and a refreshing one in the context of documentary photography during the \u2018Troubles.\u2019 Even while working for the Northern Irish Tourist Board, Bill eschewed fluffy-cloud whimsy in favour of a more sophisticated aesthetic.<\/p>\n

For Aspects, Bill is exhibiting part of a project where he has located subjects from previous images and photographed them today, hearing the story of the time since they last met.<\/p>\n

Sync Space is an inspirational, creative, innovative and collaborative multifunctional visual imaging studio and gallery in Bangor. Currently facilitating Sync Imaging, it is managed and directed by found and photographer Nick Patterson.<\/p>\n

This FREE exhibition opens at 7pm on Friday, September 26 and runs until Sunday 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exclusive Preview of Bill Kirk\u2019s Exhibition of Iconic Images This Friday, September 26th, as part of The Aspects Irish Literature Festival, Glenn Patterson will host the opening of this remarkable exhibition hosted by celebrated and iconic Newtownards-born photographer Bill Kirk, at Sync Space, Dufferin Court, Bangor. Bill was among the vanguard of local photographers who, … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8054,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8052\/revisions\/8054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}