The Language of Being: Emin, Riley, Opie, Hirst and Miller: Gormleys Belfast

Gormleys is proud to present The Language of Being, an exhibition bringing together works by five of Britain’s most important contemporary artists: Tracey Emin, Bridget Riley, Julian Opie, Damien Hirst and Harland Miller.

The exhibition takes place in Gormleys Belfast from 18th September - 6th November.

Though working across diverse styles, each artist has developed a highly recognisable visual language and investigates how we communicate who we are, either through gesture, rhythm, image, text, or symbol. 

Together, their works explore the many ways art becomes a system of language: intimate confessions, optical codes, universal symbols, fragments of literature, and reflections on existence itself.

• Tracey Emin transforms lived experience into raw, urgent drawings and paintings, mapping the vulnerability of self-expression
• Bridget Riley pushes the limits of perception with her rigorously structured compositions, where colour and form become a language of sensation.
• Julian Opie reduces figures and landscapes to iconic outlines, offering a visual shorthand for the modern human condition.
• Damien Hirst explores faith, fragility, and the passage of time, using materials from butterflies to diamonds to probe the tension between beauty and impermanence.
• Harland Miller merges painting and text, pairing nostalgia and wit in his large-scale reimagining of vintage book covers.

All five artists emerged from the post-war and YBA (Young British Artists) contexts and have helped define Britain’s contemporary cultural identity on a global stage, through their own unique visual language. 

The Language of Being underscores a shared pursuit: to capture the essence of life through systems of signification that transcend words. Whether in Emin’s handwritten line, Riley’s optical rhythms, Opie’s distilled figures, Miller’s biting phrases, or Hirst’s symbolic investigations, each work is a statement on how we make ourselves legible to one another.

This unprecedented gathering of works showcases the expressive spectrum of British contemporary art, from the personal to the universal, and from the playful to the profound.