GRAHAM GINGLES

Irish Sculptor Known for Intricate Boxed Constructions

Graham Gingles (b. 1943, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland) is one of Ireland's most distinguished and singular sculptors, internationally renowned for the intimate, enigmatic boxed constructions he has been creating since the early 1970s. He studied painting and silversmithing at the Belfast College of Art before continuing his training at Hornsey College of Art and the British School at Rome, where he held an Arts Council of Northern Ireland scholarship in 1980–81.

From Painting to Sculptural Boxed Constructions

Gingles began his career as a painter, but in 1969 turned to a highly personal mixed-media practice, combining drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography within meticulously crafted wood-and-glass boxes. These wall-hanging works, often somber and elliptical meditations on memory, loss, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, established him as a uniquely theatrical and sculptural voice within contemporary Irish art, with a single piece sometimes taking up to a year to complete.

International Exhibitions and Recognition

Since his first solo exhibition at the Arts Council Gallery in Belfast in 1981, following his return from Rome, Gingles has exhibited extensively throughout Ireland and internationally, with solo shows at the Hendriks Gallery in Dublin, the Fenderesky Gallery in Belfast, the Butler Gallery in Kilkenny, and the James Baird Gallery in Newfoundland, among others. His work has also featured in major thematic group exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom, including Art Cologne and Directions Out at the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin. He was appointed an Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy in 1986 and a Member of its Council in 2005, received the Gold Medal at the Royal Ulster Academy exhibition in 1988, and was awarded the De Veres Award by the Royal Hibernian Academy in 2010. More recently, his commission "At Times Like These Men Were Wishing They Were All Kinds of Insects," created for the 14-18 NOW programme commemorating the First World War, scaled up his signature boxed form to room-size at The MAC in Belfast.

Museum Collections and Critical Recognition

Gingles' work is held in major public collections, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), the Ulster Museum, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and the Irish Contemporary Art Society, and has been the subject of critical writing by figures such as Brian McAvera and Mike Catto.

Why Collect Graham Gingles

For collectors, Graham Gingles offers the assurance of acquiring an impeccable work from an artist of exceptional, internationally recognized technique. His intricate, enclosed worlds distill memory, history, and personal narrative into objects of extraordinary craftsmanship and quiet intensity. Owning a work by Gingles means holding a fragment of one of Ireland's most singular artistic practices, held in the same institutional company as the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Ulster Museum.

ARTWORKS FOR SALE

SHOWS

GINGLES & GINGLES: CONVERSATIONS

There are conversations that need no words. Between Graham and Lisa Gingles there is one such conversation: a dialogue made of images, impossible creatures, masks, memories and small fragments of worlds that seem to belong to a dream. Their works share a fascination with the strange and the ambiguous, with what hides behind appearances, and with the stories that begin precisely where the obvious ends.

Two Generations, One Shared Fascination with the Strange

Graham Gingles and Lisa Gingles share more than a surname and a family bond: they share a deep curiosity for the strange, the symbolic, and everything hidden beneath the surface of things. Father and daughter build, from different generations and different visual languages, worlds charged with mystery, memory and imagination.

Graham Gingles, an Irish artist born in 1943 and a member of the Royal Ulster Academy, is known for a multidisciplinary practice in which painting, drawing and sculpture combine to create objects and scenes of a distinctly narrative and symbolic character. Part of his work belongs to collections such as that of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).

Lisa Gingles, born in Northern Ireland in 1974 and based in Valencia since 1998, likewise develops a practice that moves between drawing, collage and sculpture. Her hybrid figures, faceless characters and dreamlike landscapes draw on mythology, folklore, travel and memory, building a territory where the human and the fantastical coexist.

From Boxed Worlds to Hybrid Creatures

In Graham’s universe, objects become stage sets and sculptures become small theatres inhabited by characters, symbols and enigmas. Lisa, from a different sensibility, picks up that same taste for the fantastical and transforms it into hybrid figures, masks and beings that seem to have arrived from an old tale, suspended between the human and the animal, between reality and imagination.

Together they build a territory without precise borders — a place where the familiar can become unsettling, and the strange, unexpectedly close.

An Inheritance That Is a Continuous Conversation

Conversations was born from that encounter. It does not seek to draw a line between father and daughter, nor merely to find similarities between their works, but to observe what happens when two imaginations meet — a visual conversation between two generations, two sensibilities, and two ways of looking at the world.

Masks, creatures, memories, symbols and small stories open to interpretation appear throughout their works — images that seem to belong to a familiar territory and, at the same time, to something entirely strange. Works that offer no closed answers, but instead invite the viewer to complete the story.

Conversations speaks of an inheritance that is not necessarily a transmission, but an ongoing conversation — of images that pass from one generation to another, transform, and find new ways to exist. Of what we share without knowing it, and of what, in transforming, ends up becoming entirely our own.

Gingles & Gingles: Conversations is, ultimately, an artistic and family conversation that continues through time — a conversation made of images, memories, mysteries and possible worlds.

Perhaps that is why their works seem to look at each other, as if Graham and Lisa had spent years speaking, in silence, through them.

NARRATIVE UNIVERSES

BLACKLIGHT ART GALLERY presents Narrative Universes, a group exhibition bringing together some of the most prominent names in contemporary comics and illustration to explore the power of image as a language capable of building worlds, emotions, and narratives.

Through widely diverse styles, techniques, and sensibilities, the exhibition offers a journey through visual universes that oscillate between fiction and intimacy, the fantastic and the everyday, the symbolic and the autobiographical. Each work functions as a window into its own narrative, where drawing becomes a territory of memory, imagination, and reflection.

The exhibition features the work of Carlos Maiques, Cento Yuste, Deih, Iris Serrano, Jazzy Dope, Laura Pérez Granel, Luis Royo, Paco Roca, Pendragon, RX, Santi Onasu, and Sara Herranz, creating an intergenerational dialogue where graphic novels, editorial illustration, urban art, and visual experimentation coexist.

Narrative Universes champions comics and illustration as fundamental disciplines within contemporary art: media capable not only of telling stories but also of generating atmospheres, identities, and new ways of seeing the world.

From Valencia, BLACKLIGHT ART GALLERY invites viewers to enter this map of shared imaginaries, where every stroke opens the possibility of a new story.

In the work of Paco Roca, we find a deeply human gaze, capable of transforming memory, the passage of time, and everyday experience into visual narratives of great sensitivity. His slow, emotional storytelling dialogues with the fantastic and epic imagination of Luis Royo, whose intensely visual compositions have defined the international fantasy illustration universe for decades.

Alongside these established visions, artists such as Laura Pérez Granel develop languages where the atmospheric and psychological take center stage, constructing silent scenes full of mystery. Likewise, Sara Herranz places emotional intimacy at the core of her practice, exploring human relationships, vulnerability, and desire through a direct and recognizable line.

The exhibition also incorporates voices linked to urban art and new contemporary illustration movements. Deih deploys characters with impossible anatomies and chromatic universes that connect graffiti with fantasy narratives, while Jazzy Dope introduces a vibrant, experimental language where pop culture, design, and contemporary sensibility coexist.

In the work of Cento Yuste and Carlos Maiques, drawing becomes a precise narrative construction tool, where composition and gesture generate scenes full of dynamism and character. Meanwhile, Pendragon and RX push the boundaries between illustration and contemporary art through personal imaginaries that oscillate between the symbolic, the dark, and the dreamlike.

Iris Serrano’s gaze brings a delicate, introspective dimension to the exhibition, where chromatic sensitivity and compositional subtlety create spaces for contemplation. Santi Onasu introduces a graphic energy marked by visual synthesis and the expressive power of line, bringing comic language closer to territories akin to design and experimental illustration.

Beyond their aesthetic differences, all the artists in Narrative Universes share one ability: that of constructing visual narratives capable of activating the viewer’s imagination. The exhibition thus reflects on the role of comics and illustration within contemporary art, reclaiming their conceptual, emotional, and aesthetic power.

In an era marked by the speed of images, these works invite us to pause, observe, and read visually. Each piece contains a possible story; every stroke opens a door to other worlds.

From Valencia, BLACKLIGHT ART GALLERY invites viewers to enter this map of shared imaginaries, where graphic narrative becomes an artistic experience and where every universe finds its own voice.

1 VOICE 1.000 FORMS

“1 Voice, 1,000 Forms” is a group exhibition bringing together contemporary women artists who, through very diverse visual languages, build a shared territory: the female voice in today’s art.

The exhibition starts from a simple yet powerful idea — one voice, a thousand forms — to explore how femininity is not a single or closed category, but a plural space of experiences, perspectives, and emotions. Through painting and sculpture, each artist offers a different interpretation of the world, the body, and identity, creating a mosaic of sensibilities that intersect and speak to one another.

Here, different voices coexist: a visceral and emotional voice expressed through intuition and the body; a more classical voice that reinterprets figurative tradition through technique and memory; a surrealist voice that opens the door to symbolism, the unconscious, and poetic imagery; and a young, emerging voice that looks toward the future with freedom, irony, and a desire for change.

Artists such as Ana Riaño, Dilka Bear, Harumi Shinozuka, Ines Jimm, Inma Coll, Lisa Gingles, Mandy Shadows, Nayra López Martos, Nicoletta Tomas, Nuria Torres, Silvia Bignami, and Susana Ragel shape this landscape, where art becomes a language of affirmation and diversity.

“1 Voice, 1,000 Forms” offers a reflection on the multiplicity of femininity in contemporary art, moving away from clichés and labels, and reclaiming the strength of difference. More than a thematic exhibition, it is a meeting between women who create, who transform matter into emotion, and who, through their individuality, amplify a collective voice.

BREAKING WALLS

BREAKING WALLS is an invitation to view the wall as a space in permanent transformation: a surface that records tensions, desires, and collective memories. The exhibition brings together a diverse group of urban artists who, from different aesthetic and personal perspectives, engage with the skin of the city to reveal its hidden layers. Their works—whether direct interventions on walls, reinterpretations of street techniques, or experimental explorations—challenge the immobility of everyday life and open new ways of reading the urban environment.

The exhibition is structured around a central idea: the wall as a boundary, but also as a threshold. In the hands of urban art, what once separated becomes a fertile territory where creativity erodes rigidity and generates new forms of encounter. The pieces presented in BREAKING WALLS demonstrate how the artistic gesture— even when born from urgency or spontaneity—can become an act of symbolic resistance and a tool for reimagining the spaces we share.

Throughout this journey, BLACKLIGHT ART GALLERY also proposes a necessary reflection on equality within the field of urban art itself. Despite its free spirit and democratic vocation, the street has historically been a stage dominated by male artists. In response to this tendency, BREAKING WALLS offers a conscious balance between female and male creators—not as an act of correction, but as an affirmation that a plurality of voices is essential to understanding the true richness of the urban language. The presence of female artists brings new narratives, sensitivities, and formal approaches that expand the usual imagery of the genre and enrich the viewer’s experience.

Each intervention functions as a crack through which something new emerges; a glow that reveals the vitality of an art unafraid of change, born from direct contact with the street and nourished by its unpredictable energy.

BREAKING WALLS is a tribute to the transformative power of urban art—a journey that celebrates diversity, amplifies voices that deserve to be heard, and suggests that when walls stop imposing themselves as barriers, the city transforms into a space open to imagination, equality, and creative freedom.

TIMELESS ART

TIMELESS ART: HEIGHTENED PERCEPTION OF REALITY

The common thread of TIMELESS ART is realism—a language oscillating between classical tradition and evocative fantasy. This exhibition brings together contemporary artists who share exceptional technical mastery while diverging in vision to explore the boundaries of the real and the imaginary.

The gallery becomes a space of serene contemplation, where viewers can immerse themselves in works of technical virtuosity and conceptual depth. Here, realism is not merely a faithful representation of the world but a starting point for amplifying perception: details intensify, emotions deepen, and reality is reinterpreted.

Some artists present reality with near-hyperbolic sharpness, inviting us to notice what would ordinarily go overlooked. Others introduce fantastical or symbolic elements that transform the everyday into something extraordinary.

Guided by the concept of “windows to possible worlds,” each piece acts as a portal into personal and poetic universes, where technical mastery is the key that unlocks new ways of seeing and feeling.

TIMELESS ART is an invitation to lose ourselves in the beauty of figuration and to engage with scenes that will resonate long after we leave the gallery.

DREAMLAND

The feeling that Dreamland awakens is the illusion of being in a place where fantasy truly exists.

Upon entering, we dissolve—wand-waving—the armor that has forced us to grow up in the worst possible way. And pure joy emerges, the joy of discovering a space where imagination has been crowned atop the dreams of others.

Conscious dreams, born from the skilled minds of master artists.

Here, we are all Alice, plunging—from the edge of a child’s diving board who never wanted to disappear—into the adventure of a surprise journey.

We look around carefully, we choose, and we take the invisible hand of the creator, the Artist, to chromatically blend ourselves with that dream we would have loved to have.

Because in truth, dreams are not chosen: they happen. And they happen freely, whether we like them or not.

Tender, powerful, terrifying, dystopian, romantic, destructive, glamorous, sensual, labyrinthine, chaotic—that is the indestructible world of dreams. Free, plural, and random.

Dreamland offers us, like the best cinema, the illusion of choosing a room with a view of a dream that isn’t ours, but that we adore.

Bring popcorn!

INNER STREET

Art characterizes us as a species. It is in the essence of our nature.

Before writing, we already knew how to represent the animals around us pictorially, with anatomical precision. Our symbolic ability has made us the humans we are today.
It is undoubtedly strange that sometimes Art is not given the importance it deserves. The need of expressing ourselves through painting, engraving, or sculpture is an intrinsic part of our evolution.
It has been observed that in some prehistoric caves, different tribes have intervened in the same space over various periods, even altering the meaning of previous representations. It is not difficult to link these interventions with contemporary Urban Art. The artists express themselves but do not become the owners of the spot. Once the artwork is finished, it remains in a space exposed to the creative freedom of the next person.
In the collective exhibition INNER STREET, we wanted to recreate, through the artists’ interventions on the walls of the gallery, the impermanent spirit of Urban Art. The works represented on the walls will cease to exist when the exhibition ends. Not to be replaced by better art, but by different art. Time passes inside the gallery just as it does on the street—never stopping.

FIGURATIVE FANTASY

In the collective show Figurative Fantasy, we have the feeling of having created a catalog of portals to other worlds.

Our desire is that the viewer manages to find in the works that symbiotic sensation that approaches us suddenly, when our DNA and that of the artist are combined spontaneously. The artist, through his discourse, is capable of enveloping us in his fantasy, which at that moment also becomes our own.

Marrying our sensibility with that of another human being is something tremendously delicate, it either happens or it doesn’t happen. There is art that leaves us indifferent and art that captures us.

Often we are attracted to a familiar aesthetic, especially the one we have grown up with, a visual language we have lived with and have already deciphered, so it is not a challenge for us, since it is part of our imaginary.

But sometimes we find a form of expression that shocks us, sometimes we may even dislike it at first, but for some reason it keeps our curiosity, our desire to observe and see what it means and why. And right at that moment it is possible that the artist has opened a new world for us.

The instant in which the spectator communes with a new form of expression is the instant in which his mind has begun to interpret and integrate a new language, a different symbology, a new way of interpreting color, form or technique. This new acquired knowledge will nestle inside him, enriching his visual culture.

Understanding different modes of expression enriches our way of perceiving reality. Artists gift us with small pieces that help us to understand an intensely diverse world.

POP SURREALISM AND OTHER STORIES

The mass moves in unison, when something is not in fashion it rejects it, and if that something has strength, a subculture emerges.

The LOWBROW art (POP SURREALISM) was born in California in the late 70s, and at that time, it was not what was in style.

Those artists, derogatorily called LOWBROW, were inspired by popular images that had accompanied the fantasies of their childhood and dared to elevate them to the pinnacle of art, of ART with capital letters.

Art understood as a work done with exquisite technique that, encompassed in a unique imaginary context, can immerse the viewer in a delightful sensory delight.

In a society that seems to have arbitrarily decided that to be an adult, one must first give up fantasy, these artists have been tremendously disobedient.

Their works are an open window to their intimate world. They build scenarios populated with popular references, show themes that concern them, raise doubts to the viewer, and dare to expose feelings that no one wants to talk about.

They teach us that fantasy is not just for children. In short, they are a breath of fresh air.