News and Events
AGM 2025
We wish to show our great appreciation for the members who were able to attend
15th March at The Pavilion, Stormont Estate, Belfast.
To read the Chairperson’s Report, please click here.
PSI summer newsletter 2025
Message from Chair, Julie Wilson:
Hello Pastel Society of Ireland (PSI) members and welcome to our Summer 2025 newsletter. I hope all of you are well and that you are all getting to spend some time enjoying your pastel art.
I wanted to say hello and introduce myself. It is an absolute privilege to have been asked to take up the role of Chair for the Society and I know that all of you will join me in thanking our outgoing Chair, Sorrel Wills for the leadership she has provided and for the time and energy she has given to the Society – we wish her well as she moves on to new challenges.
Some of you know me already, but for those of you who haven’t met me, I have been a member of PSI and served on committee since late 2019; most recently I have been responsible for social media, so I am the one that’s responsible for bombarding you with reels on Instagram and Facebook. I live in North Down and I am a civil servant by day and a pastel artist by night, working mostly on land and seascapes. Most recently much of my art has focused on the Arctic landscape as that is a real passion of mine.
PSI is full of artists whose work I really admire so much and I recognise that even as I am chairing the society, there is so much that I can learn from you, its members. I really look forward to working with the other committee members to develop the Society for its members; to attract new members and to promote pastel as a medium.
I look forward to meeting more of you at some of the events that we are planning and I really encourage you to read through the rest of this newsletter and to think about how you would like to see the society developing over the next few years.
Julie
AGM and new members
Our AGM was held on 15 March at the Pavillion on the Stormont estate. Thanks to all members who were able to attend.
· Committee
Sorrel Wills announced that she would step down from the role of the society’s Chair, to pursue new opportunities overseas and we elected new Committee members and office bearers. The new PSI Committee is:
· Julie Wilson – Chair, social media and website
· Catherine McKeever – Deputy Chair
· Patricia Mooney – Secretary
· Pat Burgess – Treasurer
· Anthony Haughey – committee member
Our committee members are all volunteers who give a lot of their time to keep the society operating, but we also gain a lot from this experience.
We are very keen to expand the committee to make it more representative of our membership and would invite anyone who is interested in serving on the committee, or on a sub-committee, to let us know by emailing psoisecretary@gmail.com . We are particularly keen to include committee members from the south of Ireland.
· Constitution
The PSI constitution was discussed at the AGM and we agreed to review this in order to update and simplify it and make it more accessible. We also want to ensure that it reflects our current processes and procedures, including around membership, associate membership etc.
It was agreed that the Committee will produce a revised draft constitution which we will then circulate to members before it is ratified. Ultimately we will post the final version on our website so that all members will be able to access it.
· New members
We also took advantage of the AGM venue to also host an intake of new associate members. Applicants were invited to submit three pieces of work for adjudication, following which we are delighted to welcome two new associate members to the society:
· Claire Buckley; and
· Ursula Meehan
Spring Exhibition 15 April – 31 May 2025
Our Spring Exhibition was held at the Oriel Gallery, Clotworthy Art Centre in the gorgeous Antrim
Castle Gardens.
We hope many of you had the opportunity to visit this truly beautiful exhibition, which is testament to the sheer amount of talent in the society. For those of you who were not able to make it you can view it online here www.pastelsocietyofireland.com/spring-exhibition-2025
And here are some photographs from the exhibition itself:
Pastel Workshop with visiting American artist Mark Ivan Cole
We were also delighted to host a pastel painting workshop with visiting Master Pastelist from the Pastel Society of America, Mark Ivan Cole.
Mark gave us a master-class in painting the emotional landscape, using reference photos from Ireland. He pushed us out of our comfort zones, taught us new techniques and introduced us to new materials. It was a brilliant, but exhausting two days.
We are planning to organise more workshops over the coming months so watch out for news of these and of how you can get involved.
Looking forward – KEY DATES
· Annual exhibition
We are currently in the process of organising our annual full exhibition which is to be held in Gallery 1 at the Millenium Court in Portadown, opening on 13 September and running until October.
We will be writing out separately to advise on how to participate. But here are some key dates for you:
- 9 August - Deadline for online submission of artworks to exhibition (we will write out with further information on this. Subject to available space, full members will be permitted to submit up to three paintings and associate members can submit up to two paintings);
- 23 August, 10am – 12noon – Exhibition intake day at Millenium Court. As an all Ireland society, we rarely have opportunities to get together as members, so we are planning to build in a social element to the intake day:
o We plan to provide refreshments so members can meet and chat as they drop off paintings (we will be sending out further information on how to sign up for this in the next few weeks – watch out for this); and
o Deputy Chair, Catherine McKeever has kindly offered to provide a free 1 hour workshop on photographing your art for exhibition (again, we will be sending out further information on how to sign up for this in the next few weeks – watch out for this).
- 13 September at 2pm – exhibition launch, followed by guided tour of the exhibition.
- 18 October – full day pastel workshop by PSI member Aidan Butler. (Numbers for this workshop will be limited to 14. We will write out in coming weeks with further details about times, price and how to book your place for this workshop);
- 24 October - exhibition closes; and
- 27 – 31 October – members must ensure that they collect any unsold works from the exhibition. Collection must be during normal opening hours for Millenium Court, which can be found on the Millenium Court website at millenniumcourt.co.uk
We are still finalising the details but we want to encourage members and associate members to participate and, as noted we will be in touch very soon with further details on how you can be part of this exhibition.
· Your PSI, your views
The Committee is here to serve the society and its members and as part of that we want to grow the society, promote the use of pastels, foster new pastel artists and attract new members; and we have been thinking about what we need to do to achieve this.
But, as existing PSI members, this is your society and we are keen to hear from you about how you would like to see the Pastel Society of Ireland grow and develop. Tell us what you are interested in:
- more workshops?
- advice and guidance on art problems you may be dealing with?
- More opportunities to physically or virtually meet as a society?
- Online art challenges: for example where members can share their work against a monthly theme online via social media.
These are just a few suggestions to get you thinking, but we encourage you to contact us at psoisecretary@gmail.com with your thoughts and ideas and what you would like to see the society doing.
Happy pastel painting,
The PSI Committee
Pastel Society of Ireland - Annual Exhibition September 2025. 13 September to 24 October
We will be having our next annual exhibition from 13 September until 24 October 2025 at the Millennium Court, Portadown in the main Gallery. The Annual Exhibition will also be available to view online, and all sales enquiries will go through the Millennium Court. To submit to the annual exhibition use the forms on the following link:
USWA - 67th Annual Exhibition
The 67th Annual Exhibition of The Ulster Society of Women Artists. Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast. 6th - 15th August.
Come and view the collection of wonderful and varied works from many of Northern Ireland’s female artists. Enjoy a tour of the Gaol as well for a memorable day. Almost all the works will be for sale, along with prints, cards and unframed originals.
Deadline for submissions to Dublin Painting and Sketching Club Open Exhibition - 22nd July
Non-members are invited to submit work for this prestigious exhibition, celebrating Ireland’s talent for representational painting and drawing. Details here
Deadline for RUA Submissions for the 143rd Annual Exhibition 13th July Midnight.
This Exhibition is the highlight of so many artists’ year. The competition is tough to be part of the open exhibition and all worthwhile if successful. Midnight is the deadline on 13th July. Good luck to all entrants!
Details here