Biography

I was born in New York City in 1954 and moved to Ireland in 1966. In Trinity College, Dublin I studied English Literature and History. For the remainder of my 20s I worked in printing and publishing. I began painting full time in 1985, making three dimensional work in 1989 and photo-based work in 1998.

Selected exhibitions: National Portrait Awards, Dublin 1986/93; Royal Hibernian Academy 1988/96; Sculpture in Context, Conrad Hotel, Dublin 1996; Coda 9.99, Dublin Castle 1999; Department of Arts, Dublin 2001; Frederick Gallery, Dublin 2001; Metatron Gallery, Enniskerry 2004. Gora Gallery, Montreal 2007.

Collections: Totm'a Museum, Vologda, Russia; Irish Permanent; Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin; Greek Embassy, Dublin.

From 1997 through 2002 I have been artist in residence: with a young farmers group, in a plastics factory, in three schools and in an asylum seeker transit camp. For more information and pictures of residencies and public sculpture work click here.

Recent Exhibition Schedule

Kunstforum International Awards, Perugia, Italy, October 20 - November 3, 2007

Fotobild, Berlin , November 8-12, 2007

Microsoft Collection, Dublin, November 26-30, 2007

Spirit - The Spirit in Art , Estense Castle, Ferrara, Italy, November 10-18, 2007

Florence Biennale December 1-9th, 2007

Peace and Art, Horta, Azores, January 2008

Top 40, Los Angeles Centre for Digital Art, April 2008

Little Treasures, De'Marchi Gallery, Bologna, May 2008

Cosmic Consciousness, Ico Gallery, New York, September 2008.

Real, Ico Gallery, New York, November 2008

Traces of Memory, Estense Castle, Ferrara, Italy, November 2008

Solas Gallery, Leitrim, Ireland, August 2009

Subjects and Themes

My primary concern as an artist is to explore the psychological and spiritual stories that unfold in all our lives. In much of my work I have engaged  the people that I am painting or photographing directly in exploration of the things that have shaped their lives. The dialogue begins verbally and moves into visual language as we explore settings, symbolism, dreams, visions and colour. I have been privileged to hear the stories of what Joseph Campbell calls "the hero's journey", a remarkable inner journey made by many  people in seemingly everyday lives. My work strives to reveal something of this invisible world.

Mythology has played a role for millennia in telling the stories of a society's shared experiences and highest hopes. Such stories no longer play an important role in western society to the extent that the word "myth" has come to mean something that is untrue but widely believed. Myths are fantastic stories with demons, magicians, ogres and supernaturally gifted people. They are the stories of inner demons, the magic of being alive and inner grace. I attempt to see how the age-old mythic themes are being acted out in the people around me and in myself. However I also see new stories arising out of our shared contemporary experience that are important to tell. With each piece of work I am hoping to contribute something to a new iconography of the human condition in the 21st century. The visual idioms I use are symbolism, metaphor and dramatic narrative.

As a 55 year old father of three adult children, I am particularly drawn to the myths of: birth, the struggle to be true to oneself and continuous renewal.

Aesthetic

My study of literature at Trinity has informed my work by teaching me the depth that can be achieved through poetic suggestion and the power of drama to affect "aesthetic arrest". For me it is important that my work is poetic and dramatic in conception as well as "realist" in execution. All my work, including the photographic work, is based on regular and frequent drawing from life.

Typically, I approach a painting by exploring the subject through doing a lot of drawing and taking a few dozen photos. The drawing is transferred to the canvas or panel and then the painting is built up with near-transparent glazes. My work with colour separations during my time in the printing industry gave me this viewpoint on the building up of and "cross-hatching" of layers of colour.

My painting aesthetic in turn has influenced the way I work with photographic material. I approach photographic composition and colour as a painter rather than as a graphic technician. Colour and tone are worked using similar techniques to the glaze techniques I use in painting.

My sculptural work grew out of my painting and much of the three dimensional work is  painted or wall mounted. The preparation of a piece of sculpture involves the same explorations through drawings and photos.