Anne Stewart selects Plough Handle by Paddy Mccann, a recent acquisition to the collection at National Museums NI
Paddy McCann is one of the finest of a new generation of painters based in the North of Ireland. His work is loosely figurative and deals primarily with the interrelationship between landscape and memory. McCann grew up at Clady, in rural County Armagh, and the landscape of his childhood forms an indelible presence in his painting. He is a fluent, gestural painter, deeply wedded to his craft. As influences as McCann cites the Chilean film director, Patricio Guzman, and the powerful, rhetorical poetry of Patrick Kavanagh, both of which rely on deeply personal responses to landscape as a means of expressing ideas and sensations. McCann has written of his work: ‘I am trying to generate a charge in some way, to create an emotional presence that may not be easily understood, but that might jolt a viewer into thinking about certain things- whether they are wholly intimate and personal feelings, or something broader, relating to the constantly shifting society around us.’
To the Irish in America, the irony of using funds from a Fenian club to buy a set of Malton views depicting Georgian Dublin was not apparent, writes Christian Dupont
Linda Brunker’s female avatars affirm nature and spirit. Mark Ewart talks to the Irish sculptor as she departs California for France
The magic realism of Sweeney’s transformation from man to bird continues Gabhann Dunne’s association with the natural world, writes Susan Campbell