‘Landscapes of N & W Clare’ – at Ennistymon Courthouse Gallery

O’CONNOR, PRENDERGAST, SHARP:
‘LANDSCAPES OF N & W CLARE’
2 July - 29 July, Ennistymon Courthouse Gallery

These three artists roam the roads of Clare; no longer with knapsack and easel but driving as we all do, and suddenly seeing something across a field or even in the wing mirror. Mike O'Connor arrives home with scraps of notes and pencil-drawings, which also may stay pinned in view for many months before being processed as a black and white or multicolour linocut. The need then since a print is made through indirect stages, is to restore the energy of the first viewing - through varied style / technique of block-cutting and hand printing. Tom Prendergast hunts by road, from Kilkee to Kilbaha, often spending painstaking hours on a postcard-size oil painting onto hardboard. Other images are brought home to be formalized into strong, simple elements with cutout paper. For Richard Sharp and his dog there will be a screech of brakes, a clatter of dulux cans, and some bright thing will be rapidly recorded in pastels, Indian Ink or gloss paint, on canvas or MDF board. Some will be completed in minutes while others may wait their turn for a year before being resolved…
In conjunction with this exhibition
The Courthouse Gallery presents in the Red Couch Space
MICHAEL HANRAHAN ‘Ennistymon Horse Fair’
2 July – 29 July opening 3 July at 5 pm
Michael Hanrahan is a studio artist at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon. He is just back from a world cruise on the largest ocean liner in the world having been the Art instructor on board the Cunard's flagship 'Queen Mary 2'. He travelled and taught watercolour painting as he cruised from Cape Town to St.Helena, Rio de Janeiro, Barbados, Florida, New York, and back to Southampton. Michael has followed up a long banking career with a move to the world of Art. He studied at NCAD and at the Burren College of Art. His new work is inspired by the Horse Fair held each April and November in the busy market town of Ennistymon and he captures the colour, the excitement, and characters of the horse fair.