autumn 2023
Still processing the experience and photographs from the epic trip taken this summer to Burning Man via Arizona, Utah and Nevada.
summer 2023
Burning Man passport
Honoured to be invited to create Black Rock City (BRC) passport artwork for Burning Man 2023.
Inspired by the 2023 pavilion, the hive in the logo is designed with ten hexagons which symbolise the ten principles of the Burning Man experience. Centrally aligned below the man are BRC’s geographical coordinates, the idea being that if you get to those coordinates you’ll actually be where the man is! A limited edition of 200 glowed in the dark inspired by the way that Black Rock City gloriously lights up the Nevada desert night sky for a limited time every year.
Burning Man passport pages
Spreads from the passport which I designed for Burning Man 2023 featuring the brilliant art installations photographed so beautifully by @powpowcacao @redpilotphotography & @ml_docphotography The bottom pages show stamps/visas collected from visits to participating camps.
spring 2023
Moodboards for new project
It's always exciting/daunting to embark on a new project. I've previously made work which focused on iconic figures who had the land (Michael Davitt in my 'A Life in Relief' suite & book, & James Fintan Lalor in my 'Síoraí' exhibition, film & publication) & the air (Colonel James Fitzmaurice in the 'Fitz' exhibition which I curated & designed) at heart; my new project will embrace the saga of an Irishman whose name became synonymous with the sea.
Moodboards with nautical maps & images by my heroes (Belany, Breughel, Chagall, Goya, Nolan, Tapiés, etc) are my inspiration.
winter 2022
Promotional poster & invite for the premiere of 'The Ripple Effect.'
A beautifully crafted video series showcasing music, dance, spoken word & visual art linked by a creative chain, presented by @lvdfilms & @artclasseswithcaroline
autumn 2022
Currently external examining at Birmingham City University. I’ve always loved the city for its rich tapestry – from its multiculturalism to its eclectic architecture where Classical sits comfortably with Brutalist with the future facing
summer 2022
Summer in Far North Queensland
I feel so blessed to get to get to photograph the epic Australian landscape and its sublime fauna.
spring 2022
My Fitz print presented to composer, Martin Tourish, at today’s event to mark the 94th anniversary of the first Atlantic flight from east to west. Martin was commissioned to compose a piece of music to commemorate the momentous journey. L-r: Ralph James, former Head of the Air Corps, Teddy Fennelly, historian, Martin Tourish, composer. Pic by Louise Cahill.
winter 2021
25.11.2021
‘Laois Local Live Performances’ screening poster & invite
autumn 2021
Capturing the golden hour in Emo woods. The ever changing light coming with the ever changing seasons in this part of the world never fails to stop me in my tracks
summer 2021
Completion of a series of images made within the five kilometre travel restriction of home during lock down. The different phases of the pandemic are metaphorically represented through these landscape studies.
spring 2021
12.04.2021
Fitz artwork used for the first virtual commemoration marking the incredible achievements of Col Fitzmaurice, the impact of the Portlaoise Plane during his formative years in Laois and the legacy of the Bremen flight.
It's a free online event so reserve your Zoom place by visiting https://fitz1928.eventbrite.ie
winter 2020 – 21
26.01.2021
Uluru (700 million years old, 863 metres high) like the First Nations peoples it is sacred to, stood proud long before Invasion Day which is a sad day for many as today marks 233 years of ongoing dispossession & oppression.
Thanks to @pmacgiollapadraigart for loaning me his camera to shoot this.
01.01.2021
A happy and safe New Year to all as dawn breaks on the twenty first year of the twenty first century! Prints of this photograph are available, size 600x450mm unframed, finely printed on 225gsm archival paper, signed and numbered edition of 30. Price €215 (includes post and packaging anywhere).
21.12.2021
Winter Solstice, charcoal and ink, 510x305mm Prints of this original are available, finely printed on 225gsm archival paper, signed and numbered, edition of 50. Price €225 (includes post and packaging anywhere). Go to SHOP to order.
autumn 2020
A video-mapped projection commission for Birr Vintage Week & Arts Festival. It tells the story of the ‘Cáin Adomnáin’, one of the first ever laws to address human rights by protecting women and children, enacted in Birr in AD697. It was an absolute pleasure working with @lvdfilms and the twenty wonderful people who took part in it. Click on the video to see the original video with inserted footage from it being projected onto the walls of St Brendan’s ruined church in Birr during lockdown when alternatives to showing work in galleries had to be explored.
summer 2020
Emo in lockdown. Painted with watercolours in the fields of lovely Laois. Thank God we have a beautiful county to be lockdowned in!
07.08.2021
No trips abroad this summer so time to appreciate and record the beauty of Ireland. This is magnificent Glendalough, County Wicklow. Prints of this photograph are available, size 600x400mm unframed, finely printed on 225gsm archival paper, signed and numbered edition of 30. Price €215 (includes post and packaging anywhere). Go to SHOP to order.
spring 2020
In lockdown my mind keeps drifting to journeys past and future so I’m rewriting and re-illustrating my road-diary from an epic hitch-hiking trip around Europe in 1986 which I took with Brian Cannon of 'microdot' and Oasis fame. Here’s a couple of spreads from it…
autumn 2019
28.11.2019
New illustration published in The Irish Times, for a story about an Irish writer who has to emigrate to Dubai and who quite literally 'walks out of Ireland and out of this story'.
summer 2019
27.08.2019
Honoured to have my prints about the history of Irish aviation installed in the new Seán Lemass Boardroom at Dublin Airport!
winter 2018 – 2019
New painting,
'A New Austerity',
oil on canvas,
600x600mm
autumn 2018
20.10.2018
Limited edition (of 20 copies) giclée print (400x300mm) on archival paper for the 'Fitz & the 1st East-to-West Atlantic Flight' exhibition now available.
€168 unframed (includes post and packaging anywhere). Go to SHOP to order.
The print depicts the actual night sky off the Canadian coast on the 12 April 1928 when the ‘Bremen’ flew over the Atlantic. Fitz’s silhouette reveals a view of the ‘Bremen’ in flight over the Slade Valley where it initially flew in the direction of, from its take off at Baldonnel. The Irish coast is on the east and Greenly Island where the plane landed is to the west.
04.10.2018
'Fitz & the 1st East-to-West Atlantic Flight' exhibition which I designed, curated and directed a film for at the Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise, 4 – 25 October, to celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of this world-changing event.
29.09.2018
New image for October's Hennessy New Irish Writing series, 'Between the Waves' story by Colin Walsh, published in The Irish Times. Read.
spring 2018
13.04.2018
Researching in Bremen, Germany, for an exhibition I'll be designing and curating. Ninety years ago today this actual plane was mid-way on the first ever east-west trans-Atlantic flight which was copiloted by an Irishman.
winter 2017 – 2018
12.11.2017
Two large charcoal and ink drawings for the Captain Beefheart tribute exhibition at Make.Liverpool which opened on 12 November 2017. All work had to be made in black and white in honour of Beefheart's show at the Bluecoat in 1972. More info. here
The drawings were inspired by the following story...
In 1968 Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band played a low-budget English tour and John Peel drove Van Vliet to gigs in a hired mini. “When we were coming back from Frank Freeman’s [Frank Freeman’s Dancing School was a relatively unknown provincial venue in the Midlands], he [Van Vliet] asked if he could listen to a tree. I’ve always thought that’s a really strange thing to have done, but of course it could have been his way of saying that he wanted a pee – probably was. He might have said ‘listen to a tree’, because it rhymed with ‘having a pee’. His thought processes were not like those of other men – you could well believe that he wanted to listen to a tree. If anybody else had said it, I would have said, ‘stupid bastard’ under my breath. But with Beefheart you thought, well, he knows more than I do and if he wants to listen to a tree, and I’m in a position to enable him to do so, then I’m going to give him a chance to do it, because it would be quite wrong not to. So he got out of the car and disappeared. Beefheart probably just went and has a pee, I don’t know. Or he may have just listened to a tree. I’d like to say that I can see him silhouetted against a gibbous moon with his ear firmly pressed to a fine old elm, but I just don’t know.” recounted Peel.
Prints on photographic paper are available for sale, €45 – €85: go to SHOP to order.
autumn 2017
30.09.2017
Image for September's Hennessy New Irish Writing series, 'Inside' story by Maeve O'Lynn, published in The Irish Times, 30.09.17.
Read story.
summer 2017
New images for the Hennessy New Irish Writing series, published in The Irish Times.
24.06.2017: 'There's Nothing You Can Do That Can't Be Done', story by Ruth McKee.
27.05.2017: 'The Summer of Wasps', story by Maeve McGowan. Read story.
autumn 2016
Unfettered Man of Letters exhibition, 15 September – 7 October 2016.
Commission from Laois County Council to curate and design associated material for an exhibition exploring James Fintan Lalor's influence on the events of Easter 1916 as a visual focal point for the James Fintan Lalor School 2016.
press coverage of the exhibition
click to read the write-up
01.10.2016
Invited speaker at the James Fintan Lalor School 2016, 1 October 2016.
I expressed my concern over arts funding in a 'soapbox' presentation which prompted Charlie Flanagan, Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade, to raise the issue with Heather Humphreys, the Minister for Arts, reported in the Leinster Express, 8 October, click here to read report.
My graphic for the James Fintan Lalor School 2016.
18.09.2016
Síoraí exhibition ends at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka, Read report in the Leinster Express here.
Photographed with Noel White, Irish Ambassador to Australia, who officially opened my Síoraí exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy.
summer 2016
20.07.2016
Article published in the Laois Nationalist about my Síoraí exhibition opening at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka.
Read report titled, 'Laois Man's Eye Catching Art Goes On Show Down Under,' in the Laois Nationalist, 20 July, here.
15.07.2016
Read a write-up in the Australian press about my current exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka here
article titled, 'The Ire of the Irish'
by Amber Wilson in The Courier, 15 July.
Photograph with Noel White, Irish Ambassador to Australia, by Luka Kauzlaric.
09.07.2016, Síoraí opens at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Eureka.
17.06.2016, A Life in Relief (see Books page) images feature in a new film titled Chasing Michael Davitt released 17.O6 2016
spring 2016
22.03.2016
Leinster Express, 1916 Supplement, feature on upcoming Australian exhibition – article can be read on the Words page on this site
10.03.2016
The legend that is @conko – artist; purveyor of the coolest clothes around (check them out www.bpbwear.com); and campaigner for mental health awareness – has painted a new wall at NCAD, Dublin and honoured me with a shout out!
winter 2015 – 2016
13.01.2016
The Irish Times, feature on forthcoming Australian exhibition in special 1916–2016 supplement read article
05.12.2015
'Martha' print released.
Limited edition print now for sale. The image was inspired by Dermot Bolger's beautiful 'Martha' poem which was in turn inspired by the Tom Waits' song.
Giclée, 297x420mm, edition of 20, first 10 signed by Dermot Bolger and the artist.
€95 unframed.
Go to SHOP to order.
Article about forthcoming exhibition in Autralia published in Midlands Art & Culture Magazine, Issue 24.
autumn 2015
03.10.2015, 'I am Ireland' Programme launch at Dublin's Smock Alley Theatre, 3 October.
09 – 10.10.2015, 'Sioraí' images used on promotional material and for projections at the James Fintan Lalor Autumn School 2015, Dunamaise Arts Centre, see photographs
summer 2015
Work from 'Síoraí: Visualising the Words of James Fintan Lalor Today' shown at the following: Saibhreas Group Exhibition, Damer House Gallery, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, 11 April – 10 May, and at Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise, 18 June – 8 August; Birr Arts Festival, Co. Offaly, 31 July – 7 August; and Design vs Art, The National Museum in Gdañsk, Poland, 16 May – 30 August.