Eakin Gallery

Eakin’s my favourite art gallery on the Lisburn Road. A lovely little family run gallery spanning two floors of a red brick townhouse. Specialists in contemporary Irish art they also have some pieces from the past as well. You’ll find a range of Artists’ work here including George Callaghan, Brian Ballard, Neil Shawcross, Dean McDowell, Louis le Brocquy, J B Vallely and Terry Bradley amongst others.
I always call in for a look when I pass Eakin. Yesterday I visited to view the beautiful, stylised, atmospheric paintings of George Callaghan. His harvest sunset paintings are mesmerising and I adore his ‘Purple Haze’ landscapes. A beautiful exhibition for this time of year as we near the end of October.
Prices vary, ranging from smaller works for a few hundred pounds to larger paintings for a few thousand. If I win the lotto I may one day be able to buy instead of just browse! The owner Brian Eakin is very welcoming and their website’s kept fully updated with all current paintings listed. However nothing beats a stroll through Eakin Gallery to see the paintings in the flesh.

I am in no way an art buff. I’m not an art anything in fact. But I do like to have a look around these places, even just to seem a little cultured to the store assistant who can obviously seen through my nods of appreciation.
From the outside it looks a little more commercial to other galleries in the area. It always has advertisements in its windows, stating silly pointless things that you should already expect to find in a gallery (not signs saying ‘pretty paintings!’ but close enough). The price range clearly shows that the stuff here really is for someone who wants to make a serious commitment. Paying ⁴⁄₅ hundred pounds for a painting the size of my palm is the biggest commitment anyone can make in my opinion!

The Eakin Gallery occupies the more commercial end of the fine art market with eyecatching pictures of local landscapes and figures. Names which came up when I visited included Hamilton Sloan (local landscapes), Terry Bradley (paintings of bold, tattooed, alternative types) and George Callaghan (strange, stylised illustrative landscape) and some of the highly popular cow paintings by Paul Bell.
The paintings are vivid, straightforward and a little garish for some people’s taste. In relation to the serious art investment market the prices are not colossal — typically £1,000 or more, though considerable of course.
This is a pleasant and welcoming enough gallery in an old townhouse spread over two floors and the owners — it’s evidently a family business — are friendly. Although the pictures I saw were not really my thing the day I went, they probably change with frequency and there’s no harm in having a look anytime.