Open Studio
with Mhairi Sutherland

The Gypsy Ray Photography Residency

Join artist Mhairi Sutherland for an Open Studio event in Butler Gallery’s Garden Studio.

Mhairi Sutherland is the Gypsy Ray Photography Resident Artist for 2025. Over the two-week residency, Mhairi has connected with Gypsy Ray’s analogue photographic practice and places, specifically river water and secluded landscapes. These chime with Mhairi’s research into plant-based photographic developers using harvested water and locally growing plants and herbs. Mhairi's professional approach is informed by peer discussion, critical thinking and working alongside others as a wildlife conservation volunteer and gardener.

At Butler Gallery we are excited about nurturing the development of plant-based photographic practices, as a way to progress and support analogue photographic practice with a sustainable focus. This in keeping with ecological focuses across our Learning and Engagement programme and our Garden Studio as a space to expand our Learning Programme with a focus on sustainability.

This is a free ticketed event. The Garden Studio has limited capacity, please book a place to attend.

About:

The Gypsy Ray Photography Residency is an annual residency programme at Butler Gallery which utilises analogue cameras, photography equipment and darkroom set up for the development of new analogue photographic work. The residency is intended to support artists working in analogue photography, to afford them time and facilities to develop their practice.

About Gypsy Ray
A native of Illinois, USA, Gypsy Ray (1949-2020) studied drawing and photography at the University of Iowa later receiving her Masters degree in photography from Goddard College. Most of her U.S.A. based photographic work was created in California where her series based on The Male Nude and her later work with the San Francisco Aids Foundation and San Francisco Hospice received national and international attention. Resident in Ireland since 2000 she continued her documentary practice through creative engagements with local Camphill communities and with Traveller communities in County Kilkenny. Her work is to be found in many public and private collections including Permanent Collections, (U.S. Library of Congress), The Wellcome Trust Gallery (British Museum), Butler Gallery and the David Kronn Collection (Irish Museum of Modern Art).

The Gypsy Ray Photography Residency has been made possible with the support of Alan Counihan, Daniel Ryan and Patrick Tranmer, and Mary L. Ray and Steve Berlinski.

Artist Biography:

Mhairi Sutherland is a visual artist, curator and educator based in Derry. Employing a research approach to sustainable photographic practice, ecology and the archive, she has a sustained interest in the haptic and the hand-made. The history of photography and imperialism is the mainstay of her practice, whilst increasingly gathered objects, drawing and book-making are integral elements of her installations.

Recent solo projects include Home house, The Glebe House and Gallery (OPW) Churchill, Donegal (2024) Re-Imagining Treason, Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery, Belfast (2022) Haptic, (2021) and Gemini, (2020) both Wild Tulips Gallery, Derry and Genesis Lost, Artlink, Donegal (2019). Later in 2025, Earth Camera will explore Ireland’s only camera factory archive supported by an award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Selected group exhibitions include There, Them & Now, Arts Council of Northern Ireland Collection, Flowerfield Arts Centre (2025) LOVEARTBUYART Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2020) Drone Vision: Warfare, Surveillance and Protest research project and exhibition commission, Hasselblad Foundation and HDK-Valand Academy, Gothenburg, Sweden (2018). Mhairi was awarded a PhD in 2012 Dublin Institute of Technology (TU Dublin) and an MFA (Distinction) from the University of Ulster, Belfast (1994-96). Her work is represented in the OPW and ACNI Collections, amongst others.

https://www.mhairisutherland.c...