The truth always comes out in October

Julie Lovett grew up on a dairy farm in rural County Kerry.  After moving to Belfast in 2009, she spent the majority of her artistic career switching from hospitality jobs to the dole office, to the studio, and back again. Her work is born out of this situation and acknowledges that these circumstances dictate artists’ careers but can also generate material that allows them to reject, respond to, and interrogate these conditions.

“Hi there, my name is Julie Lovett and I am a professional photographer...” is a recurring statement that persistently appears in The truth always comes out in October, and informs the premise of the episodic video and sculptural installations in the show. The truth always comes out in October engages with the act of identifying oneself as a ‘professional’ and with real and fictional narratives about frustration, labour, craft and performativity that underpin the everyday lived experiences of rural and urban environments.

The exhibition features six video works that were filmed in both Belfast and Kerry, reminiscent of a ‘6-part TV series’ format, and sculptural objects that also feature as props in the films. Influenced by topics such as numbing soap-operas and overload of self-help culture, the works in The truth always comes out in October explore the artist’s own identity and sense of place and aim to connect banal similarities and emotive complexities of the everyday activities of the common artist with those of the general public.

Julie Lovett is one of 5 artist selected to PS² Freelands Artist Programme 2018-2020 together with Janie Doherty, Michael Hanna, Jan McCullough and Emily McFarland.
For more information see

This five year programme by the Freelands Foundation, London has at its aim to support emerging artists over two years in the 4 regions of the UK. Alongside PS², Belfast/ Northern Ireland are Site Gallery, Sheffield, England; g39 in Cardiff, Wales and Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland.
A new cohort of 5 (6) artists for the programme 2019-21 just started and include: BROWN&BRÍ, Jane Butler, Mitch Conlon, Jasmin Märker and Thomas Wells.
For more information see

This is also the start of a series of 4 projects, where artists of the first cohort will show their current work: Michael Hanna, November-December 2019; Emily McFarland, January- February 2020 and Janie Doherty March-April 2020.

This project is supported by the Freelands Artist Programme