Hats In The Belfry chronicles the Guinness-fuelled journey of three young painters from the eerie landscapes of The Burren to the grey streets of Galway. A fabled trip, defined for these young men by three distinct encounters with loneliness, perfectly embodied in an unexpected conversation with a homeless Jazz Mandolin player; the window-displayed artwork of a marine painter; and the comedic recurrence of a fictional character—Withnail and I's actorly Uncle Monty. 

In this exhibition, Anthony Banks, Alex Gibbs and Woody Mellor consider these embodiments of loneliness in the face of their own lonely profession and the ever-present artistic desire to simply be heard. This trip, and indeed these three characters become a sort of conduit for the artists’ own loneliness and self-indulgence. For anyone who will listen.