This is the first major institutional exhibition by Belfast based artist Bill Saunders, who works primarily in sculpture. In this exhibition, Saunders considers the very site where artwork is made — the profound “thinking space” that is the studio — as a source of inspiration for his work.

Side Steps These Ferried Measures Rise examines the artist’s studio as subject, presenting works that record, reconstruct, or otherwise invoke the space of production.

Saunders’ work reuses found material — often the detritus found on his studio floor — to create new sculptural forms from chance encounters of disparate elements, which involve the reworking of and reimagining of previous artworks.

“Over the past ten years or so, many by-products of my workplace continue “in the mix”, awaiting opportunities to SURFACE in some other format or alignment.  Announcing ARRIVAL or DEPARTURE”.
– Bill Saunders

In addition to sculptural assemblages, this exhibition includes a series of works on paper that the artist created by making rubbings directly from the floor itself. Saunders describes this process of drawing as “a kind of print-taking, using ‘to hand’ colour, with their accumulating surfaces attracting further configuration.”

Saunders’ practice ruminates on the importance of the artist’s studio and its multiple roles as work space, laboratory, a place of sanctuary, privacy and contemplation, which remain essential conditions for creativity.