Translink’s Artist in Residence Explores Northern Ireland

Over the past six months, Translink’s Artist in Residence, Ed Reynolds, has been travelling across Northern Ireland using Translink trains, buses and coaches, exploring the landscapes, communities and everyday moments that unfold along the network.

Using the Translink Journey Planner App, Ed planned each route in following many of the same journeys that thousands of people take every day. From quiet rural halts to busy city stations, each trip became an opportunity to observe, sketch and paint the places and people that shape daily life across Northern Ireland.

This series of blogs shares the different journeys behind the paintings — the routes Ed mapped out using the Journey Planner, the moments he encountered along the way, and the landscapes that inspired his work.

The paintings created during these travels will be brought together in a public exhibition at Belfast Grand Central Station from 22–29 March, displayed on the main concourse for passengers and visitors to enjoy.

You can follow the same routes Ed travelled using the Translink Journey Planner App and if you pass through Belfast Grand Central Station, pause for a moment on the concourse to see where those journeys led.

Because sometimes the most familiar journeys reveal something new — when you stop long enough to look.

Painting the Journey - Stories from the Routes

When I became Translink’s Artist in Residence, I didn’t just gain access to trains, buses, stations, and platforms.
I gained access to stories.

People talk to painters in a way they don’t talk to anyone else.
They tell me where they’re going.
Where they’ve been.
Who they’ve lost.
Who they love.
What the landscape means to them.
How the journey gives them space to breathe.

The people I have met - have shown me routes saved on their phones, how they use the Translink Journey Planner App - with small digital maps that quietly hold together workdays, reunions, hospital visits, and moments of escape.

I’ve painted from Goldliner coaches and the Glider, from railway platforms and quiet Ulsterbus stops, from Metro buses in Belfast and Foyle Metro buses in Derry~Londonderry, and even from airport services that carry families to beginnings, endings, and everything in between.

This collection gathers those journeys - the landscapes, the habitats, the wildlife, the small gestures, the big emotions, and the quiet kindnesses that happen across Northern Ireland every single day.

These are the places that painted themselves into my sketchbooks.
These are the people who stepped off trains, coaches and buses just to say hello.

And these are the stories that remind me why public transport matters.

Ed Reynolds Translink Artist in Residence

Translink’s Artist in Residence Programme is delivered by Daisychain Inc and funded by Arts & Business NI.

Ed Reynolds