Work Showing in Dublin

I have 2 small paintings in a group exhibition opening this week in Dublin. I'm delighted to be part of Island Life which opens at the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery on Thursday the 5th of July at 6pm. The exhibition is comprised of 12 painters, here are the exhibiting artists:

Sonia Shiel, Kathy Tynan, Marcel Vidal, Mark Swords, Salvatore of Lucan, Joe Scullion, Robert Armstrong, Julia Dubsky, Lesley-Ann O'Connell, Pat Byrne, Stephen Loughman, Cecilia Danell, William O’Neill and Stephanie Deady

Exhibition Invite

I'm delighted to be included in the line-up, the 2 paintings that I have in the exhibition are the last ones from the show back in February, I would have liked to have had newer pieces but what I have finished  was already submitted to something else which I'll be posting about a little later in the Summer.

The Love of the Darkness Hidden. One of the 2 paintings I have in Island Life

Work Showing in Dublin

I'm delighted to have 2 paintings in the Hermione Exhibition at Alexandra College in Dublin. The exhibition is curated by Aisling Prior, opens tomorrow night, March 6th at 6:30pm and runs until March 15th. The opening is followed by The Hermione Lecture which will be given by Una Sealy RHA at 8pm.

One of the 2 paintings I have on show - He Sat Listening to the Songs, Oil on Canvas, 22cm x 18

The exhibition is open from 11am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 1pm to 5pm Saturday and Sunday. There's 63 of us exhibiting in the show, I wasn't able to upload the invite but here's a link to the website for some information on the exhibition - The Hermione Exhibition and Lecture

New Solo Show in Dublin

I have a new solo exhibition opening next Wednesday February 7th at Pallas Projects in Dublin. The title of the show is Between the Hawthorns and its in the same style as the previous body of work but with several new characters introduced. Some of these are completely new, others were referenced in the last body of work through the use of hoodies and hats. The reason for the title is because of the old Irish belief that the hawthorn tree is a meeting place for fairies and to disturb one would bring about bad fortune

To Do No Harm but to Show Favour. My interpretation of the Fear Dearg or Red Man, referenced in the last series as a hat has finally been given a body.

The backgrounds to the paintings are still dark and gloomy but instead of the completely black backgrounds of the Dock Leaf paintings I have started using more detailed backdrops and during the photography process stopped setting up the shots in such a way that they deliberately filled the background with shadow.

The official opening is at 6pm to 8 and it's up then until the 17th. I'm hoping to show between 11 and 13 paintings, the work is still small scale, I think the largest is 36cm x 31cm, but I don't want to have it overcrowded either because I like a fair amount space around each painting.

Work Showing in Dublin

I have 3 small paintings going on show at the end of the month in Dublin. I'm delighted to be involved in a new arts festival titled Soul Noir Festival of the Dark Arts. The festival is being setup by friend and artist Sinead Keogh and the theme is Gothic, macabre and "the other". The opening is on Halloween night and it runs until the 2nd of November. You can see from the website the work of the associated artists and there was an open call out too which received a huge response.

The space is an old building on North Great Georges Street that was built in the 1760's and is perfect for the theme. Sinead has set up a Fund It campaign to help with the costs of the festival, if you want to support her you can do that here. The campaign runs for just under 2 more days, it ends at 4:30 on Monday, October 10th.

Soul Noir Festival Twitter

Soul Noir Festival Facebook

Soul Noir Festival Instagram

One of the 3 paintings - A Self Appointed Guardian, Oil on Canvas, 2017

Leaving the Dublin Studio

I've had to move out of the studio at A4 Sounds. The reason being that I've been so busy around home that I was getting time to use it. Just with travelling between Dublin and Laois, if I wasn't on the bus early the day was gone and that was that. I have a couple of weeks left on the lease but I'm working from Mountrath again. I was only managing one or two days a week in the Dublin studio at least this way I can work on paintings whenever I'm home.

I'll stay in contact with the artists in the studio and hopefully manage to get back at some stage but for now I'm happy enough to be working back out in the country again and I'm currently working on a fairly large scale commission that I was asked to do during my MFA end of year show.

New Studio in Dublin

I have just moved into a new studio in Dublin. I signed up for a membership with A4 Sounds a few weeks ago and got a studio last week. I'm delighted to be back based in Dublin but with the residency in August and the exhibition last month I didn't want to break up my work time with moving. I found working on my own over the summer tough after being part of a busy atmosphere at Emmett House so I'm happy to be part of a group environment again.

There's a good number of multidisciplinary artists based in the building and there's always a lot of activity around. I'm hoping to be back painting this week but with a few small jobs to get done I'll just be working on a piece that I started about three weeks ago. It was originally intended to go into Beneath the Dock Leaf but I wasn't happy with it and restarted it the week after the exhibition opening.

No title yet but this is the newest painting so far.

I'll have a profile page on the A4 Sounds website soon so once that's up I'll post a link.