The motifs within Peter Wenger’s batik work reflect the indelible influence of the Irish climate and its ancient culture, writes Douglas Sealy ahead of his exhibition in Kilkenny this August
When I was invited to an exhibition called Batik – Tapestries in a small local gallery thirty-two years ago, I had no high expectations; there might be some pretty patterns, some copies of Celtic motifs, perhaps a landscape or two. Nothing prepared me for the abundance of colour, the wealth of reference to the literature and archaeology of ancient Ireland, the disregard of any conventional approach to formal composition, and the inexhaustible inventiveness of the artist, Peter Wenger. I was fascinated and bought a large batik, the first of several that I was to buy, after I had, not without difficulty, found his remote retreat up a side road in the undulating farmlands of Kilkenny
