Introducing our Emerging Exchange artists (part 2).
- CEX
- Jul 27
- 2 min read
Thanks to financial support from Belfast City Council via the Artist Studios Organisational Grant 2024/25 Creative Exchange secured additional temporary studio spaces in Portview for early career artists. We’ve been delighted to welcome 6 new temporary members to our studio group this year. Let’s meet the 3 occupants of unit A202: Emma Mulholland, Katie McFadden and Eimear Campbell.
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Emma Mulholland studied Fine Art at the University of Reading, specialising in painting. Her oil paintings are emotionally driven and instinctively developed from photographic references. Layer by layer, she transforms landscapes into expressive, atmospheric works that blur the line between realism and abstraction. Guided by intuition rather than rigid planning, Emma captures light and movement - using a limited palette and raw textures.
Katie McFadden
Katie is a filmmaker and artist from Donegal, now based in Belfast. Working with film, moving image, and installation, she explores landscapes as sites of memory shaped by history, economy, and colonialism. She holds a BA in Visual Art from IADT (2019) and a master’s in Film Studies from Queen’s University Belfast. Her work has screened internationally at IMMA, Docs Ireland, and the Cork International Film Festival. In 2024, she won the NI Screen Development Pitch at Docs Ireland and began work on her debut feature. Her film ‘The Flickering Light’ premiered in Berlin with support from New Irish Creatives.
Eimear Campbell
Eimear is a Belfast-based visual artist originally from rural County Tyrone. She creates contemporary semi-abstract landscapes using acrylics and mixed media, aiming to evoke the emotional and sensory experience of being in nature. Her work balances bold colour with calming tones, inviting viewers to reflect on their own connection to the environment. Influenced by her background in photography (BA Hons, Ulster University, 2015), Eimear explores the contrast of the natural and synthetic within Ireland’s landscape.
The idea behind the Emerging Exchange project was to pilot ways to scale up and expand our capacity with a view to developing long-term, purpose built artist studios on site in the coming years. These spaces were aimed specifically for artists who are in the early stages of their career and who have had limited or no access to a studio space previously. Following the ethos of our main unit, these are shared spaces so artists can benefit from peer-support and collaboration.
We are really excited about the new connections, energy and experiences our new members will bring to the Creative Exchange Studio group - having some fresh energy and work in our 'Drafting' foyer exhibtion has already proven so valuable!
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