Belfast-Born Rita Duffy is keeping very busy these days - no sooner had her exhibition opened at the Hugh Lane Gallery this week as she eagerly discussed her next project.
It was her first exhibition at the Hugh Lane and she was delighted to have sold several pieces in the first hour. But she was certainly not resting on her laurels. She was heading back to her studio to finish A Shoal of Glass Eels, an installation which will burst through the wall of the foyer at the new Waterfront Hall in her native city.
She is also working on a huge cloak of swan feathers for a production of The Children Of Lir at the Lyric Theatre. And she hopes to establish Belfast's first Sculpture Factory at the old gasworks on the Lower Ormeau Road.
Her Banquet show at the Hugh Lane, comprised of paintings, large-scale drawings and installations, was opened by the poet Michael Longley, who had clearly done his research. He arrived armed with a special poem and two beautiful swan's feathers, which he presented to Rita to get her started on her cloak.
The artist's husband, architect John Kelly, was busy mixing with some of Rita's contemporaries, including Robert Ballagh, Alice Maher, Louise Walsh and Geraldine O'Reilly. There was some speculation that as Rita had attended the same school as the President, Mrs McAleece, that one of her works might grace the Aras.
Director of the gallery, Barbara Dawson, was deep in conversation with Tony Gregory TD, while exhibitions curator Christina Kennedy, and Arthouse's Aoibheann Gibbons compared plans for their respective Web sites. Everyone, at least once, referred to the enormous wedding dress suspended above the main staircase.