Brian Bourke recalls old conflicts together with themes of resilience in his discrete series of works at the Taylor Galleries, Dublin this spring, writes Catherine Marshall
There is a real threat when writing about an artist like Brian Bourke that the very simplicity and accessibility of his work will blind us to its sophistication. Another temptation, related to this one is to think of him as a bit of a rough diamond – whatever that means. These tendencies arise directly out of the artwork and also from the persona of the artist. When Brian Bourke was a young artist many of the role models offered to him in Ireland by an older generation still wore bow ties in conscious emulation of Toulouse Lautrec and la vie boheme. Bourke couldn’t stomach it.
Was Daniel Maclise a proto-Nationalist painter? Peter Murray thinks not, in his assessment of the National Gallery’s recently restored masterpiece.
Christiaan Corlett looks at a valuable, but little-known portfolio of photographs taken by Victorian doctor Ephraim MacDowel Cosgrave, now in the collection of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
Vivienne Roche belongs to a generation who transformed what sculpture could be. ‘I don’t consider myself an object-maker. I work with place and change’, she tells Brian McAvera while her exhibition continues at the Royal Hibernian Academy