The Ulster Museum holds one of the most important collections of twentieth-century and contemporary art in the UK and Ireland. SUSPENSE contains some of its highlights arranged in three rooms to show the development of the collection. 

To complement The Taking of Christ and The Supper at Emmaus, works are included that resonate with Caravaggio’s dramatic use of chiaroscuro (light and dark) and exploration of cinematic tension and suspense. Two films of importance are Segura, 2010 by Willie Doherty and Left Right and Centre, 2017 by Cornelia Parker. Both echo Caravaggio’s revolutionary achievements in painting during the early 1600s.

Room 1 The Arrival of Modernism, 1920s and 1930s

Following the First World War (1914-18), a new spirit of modernism emerged in painting, and many artists abandoned traditional methods of representation. In 1926, the Ulster Museum received a bequest of Victorian paintings from Sir Robert Lloyd Patterson. As plans developed for the opening of the Belfast Art Gallery and Museum in 1929, (now the Ulster Museum) it became clear the bequest did not represent the new developments in painting. A decision was made to sell the original bequest and buy the work of young British artists, while retaining the name Lloyd Patterson Collection.

Room 2 Post War Art, Light and Dark, 1950s and 1960s

The Ulster Museum’s Post war collection is of international importance and was formed during a relatively short period in the late 1950s and 1960. In the aftermath of the Second World War (1939-45), many painters explored new and revolutionary methods of artistic expression. A wide range of International movements emerged, some in response to the aftermath of war and the emerging tensions of the Cold War. In Germany, members of Group Zero sought to return artistic production to its most basic principles using raw wood, metal, and even burning the surface of the canvas. 

Room 3 Post War Art, Colour and Light, 1950s to the Present

The Ulster Museum’s collection of Post war is of international importance and was formed during the late 1950s and 1960s when few museums outside London collected contemporary art. In the Post war period the energy, scale and reverence for colour characteristic of American abstract painting was the dominant global influence. During the 1950s, members of the Colour Field movement experimented with pouring acrylic paint directly unto unprimed canvas. Two of the most impressive paintings in the Post war collection, Golden Dawn 1958 by Morris Louis and Crystal 1959 by Kenneth Noland are examples of this technique. 

Willie Doherty (Born 1959), Segura, 2010

High definition video and sound, duration 10 minutes, Commissioned by Manifesta 8, Murcia, Spain, European Biennale of Contemporary Art, 2010. Purchased 2017

Segura was filmed in Murcia, an arid region in southern Spain where water is a powerful symbol of power and ownership. The land was in the possession of the Moors for several centuries and the landscape still bears traces of their irrigation channels. The region is close to North Africa and attracts a transitory population who find places of habitation and refuge within the landscape. Doherty filmed Segura mainly at night, and his use of intense, saturated colours to depict the unsettling qualities of this semi-underworld resonates with Caravaggio’s dramatic use of light and dark in The Taking of Christ.

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain (born 1978) Interval V, 2023                                                                                              

Jacquard tapestry, cotton, wool, silk, Lurex, Courtesy of Kerlin Gallery, Dublin

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain’s practice combines film and tapestry and addresses a range of environmental, anthropological and societal issues. The title Interval V refers to the ‘Dream Pool Essays’, 1088, by Chinese writer and polymath Shen Kuo (1031-95), now considered the first printed reference to climate change. Due to the costliness of materials and complexities of production, tapestry was traditionally reserved for the most sacred religious and dynastic subjects. In Interval V, Ni Bhriain inverts this tradition by using tapestry to address urgent concerns of climate emergency, the extinction of species and the displacement of peoples.