Philip Napier
Visual Arts
Philip Napier was born in Belfast in 1965. He was educated at Manchester Polytechnic (Foundation and BA 1983 - 87) and University of Ulster (Masters 1988 - 89). In 1991, he won the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s British School at Rome Scholarship. He is currently Head of Sculpture at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
A continued concern in Napier’s mixed-media installation work is the complexities, inadequacies and ambiguities of language which operate and linger within the colonial legacy of Ireland and in particular Northern Ireland. The colonized often seek refuge in language as a strategic way of getting at the colonizer. And since cultural identity is laid into language it is not surprising that language can become the cause of a violent interaction between the colonized and the colonizer.
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2012 Philip Napier – recalculating, VOID , Derry.2006 The Soft Estate (in collaboration with Michael Hogg) - Golden Thread Gallery , Belfast
2002 Gauge 5 - Kunstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt, Germany
1997 Gauge Part 1 - Orchard Gallery, Derry
1997 Gauge Part 2 - Shown as part of Locations, Dislocations, Relocations on the occasion of the International Critics Conference, Bogside, Derry.
1997 Gauge 3 - PS1 New York, USA
1996 Strip - Centre D’Art Contemporaine F.R.A.C Le Creux De L,Enfer
1996 A Locus + / On Edge Production - The Video Inn, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
1995 Blacktop - Arts Council Gallery , Belfast
1994 Actuation - Newry Arts Centre
1991 Coalface - British School at Rome, Italy
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 Art of the Troubles, Ulster Museum, Belfast
2010 Archiving Place & Time, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown
2009 Arts Council Northern Ireland Troubles Exhibition , Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast.
2007 Re – Generation, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown.
2007 Napier/Hogg joint venture, Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, Dublin.
2007 Things we may have missed, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast.
2007 Resolutions; New Art from Northern Ireland, American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC.
2006 The Soft Estate, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
2006 The Dissembodied Eye: Collective Histories of Northern Irish Art, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
2004 Thinking About Ideas - Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
2003 The Public Eye - Selected works from the Arts Council Collection - Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast & Fruitmarket, Edinburgh
2001 Thinking About Drawing - Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin
2000 Montreal Biennale
1999 Fauna - Museum Zacatecus, Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland
1999 Group - Liverpool Biennale Fringe, England
1999 Bloody Sunday, Orchard Gallery, Derry
1998 Glen Dimplex Awards - Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
1996 Mapping, Language and Power - Gallery Diana Nikki Marquette, Paris;
1996 Orchard Gallery, Derry; Centre for Contemporary Art, Llubiana, Slovenia.
1996 L’Imaginaire Irlandais - L’Ecole Superiere de Beaux Art, Paris, France
1995 Distant Relations - Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Camden Arts Centre, London; England; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Santa Monica Museum, California, USA; Museo Art Carillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico
1994 From Beyond the Pale - Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
1994 XXII Sao Paolo Biennale
1994 Identita e Rapprazentazioni Cartofiche - Museo Nazionale Prehistorico Ethnographico, Luigi Pigorini, Italy
1993 Other Borders; Six Irish Projects - Site specific projects in and around Washington Square organised by the Grey Art Gallery and Study Centre, New York University.
1992 In and out of the Circle - Kerlin Gallery, Dublin; Fenderesky Gallery at Queens, Belfast
1991 Shocks to the System; Social and Political Issues in recent British Art
1991 From the Arts Council Collection - Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London and touring nationally