While Others Sleep – New Art by Saffron Monks-Smith

Influenced by night walking, the artworks are an immediate response to the heightened sensitivity that we experience when night draws in and shadows are cast.

Originally specialising in Fine Art Printmaking, Saffron graduated in 2018 from Ulster University, Belfast. She then furthered her studies, obtaining a Master’s degree in Fine Art, specialising in Painting.

Saffron has received several awards for her work including the Belfast Print Workshop Membership Award, 2015, the Seacourt Print Workshop Graduate Award 2018 and the ArtisAnn Emerging Artist Award in 2020. Her work is also held in the permanent collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Her work featured in an exhibition of Recent Female Graduates in London in 2024.Saffron uses the motif of artificial light within these scenes; shadowing the idea of our human impulse to push out the darkness with synthetic illumination and providing us with snippets of life around the corner or inside the darkened buildings. She aims to create visual story-telling through light, dark and the dwellings that we call home.

By capturing a momentary atmosphere of mundane, everyday streets, she plays with the idea of creating human presence through depictions of people-less streets. Her paintings aim to create a window into an environment where the viewer can question and explore our instinctual associations with twilight and our peculiar fascination for the unknown.

All artworks are available to buy.

You can also buy art from this exhibition through the Own Art scheme which gives you an interest-free loan over 10 months (and you still get to take the art home immediately the exhibition ends).

Wed 6^th November to Sat 14^th December.

Late Night Opening Wed 6^th November from 6 to 8pm.