Who We Are

Northern Irish & Arty

Top Floor Art is a visual arts and crafts gallery offering a beautiful, diverse and thought provoking range of contemporary art and craft, made here in Northern Ireland, by the people who live here in Northern Ireland.

Based in Saintfield, Co. Down

Top Floor Art houses the open studios of fine artist, Stephen McClean (Thursdays & Fridays), textile artist, Emma Whitehead (Wednesdays & Saturdays), and yarn expert, Jaele McColgan (Tuesdays). You can call in, have a chat about creative processes (yours or theirs), commission an artwork or just watch the fun. We encourage direct communication with all our artists. If you'd like to commission a bespoke piece of glass, a ceramic sculpture or a locally sourced wooden bowl, ask us and we will happily put you in contact with Ruth, Lindsay, Roger or any of our Top Floor Artists whose work suits your requirements.

Come and Take Part

We want everybody to have as much fun as we do when we're being creative, so we run a regular, drop in, craft circle on the 2nd & 4th Tuesday of the month. Come along between 4pm & 7pm and bring a work in progress (or not). We offer a comfortable and friendly space for you to start something new, share your skills and learn from those around you. Our main workshop programme begins in August as part of August Craft Month and we are also involved with a number of voluntary, community and international projects - check out our What's On Page to find out more.

How can we help?

If you have a passion for creating and want to take the next step to sell your work or share your expertise through workshops, we can help. We support the work of new and emerging artists and craftspeople. It won't matter to us if you have no formal qualifications and no experience of exhibiting - it's the work that counts! Get in touch with either Emma or Stephen, if we can't help directly, we can certainly point you in the right direction.

Where We Began

Top Floor Art Gallery & Open Studios was established by Emma Whitehead and Stephen McClean in 2010 to showcase their art, allow visitors the opportunity to see work in progress and share their enthusiasm for creating new and innovative artworks. Since then the gallery has grown, showing and supporting the work of over thirtyfive artists, craftspeople and even some poets.

How we'd like to stay in touch

If you've joined our email newsletter list, contacted us or attended one of our events or workshops we'd like to stay in touch with you. The emails we'd send you from time to time will contain news and information relating to workshops, events, exhibitions, publications and shop products available through Top Floor Art.

Our subscription lists will not be shared, sold, rented or leased to any third parties.

You can choose to stop receiving emails at any time. You can send a message to info@topfloorart.co.uk to tell us that you wish to unsubscribe or use the unsubscribe option on our newsletter email.

You only need to give us your name and email address to receive our emails. Your name and email address will be held on secure UK servers.

Should you attend one of our events or workshops were we use photography or video we will ask for your permission to use any content containing identifiable images and specify where we would like to use them.

We will comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018.

Read our Privacy Policy here
Find out more about your personal information rights here - Information Commissioners Office