Mick O’Dea’s study of fellow academician Stephen McKenna, this year’s recipient of the Ireland-US Council/Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award, embodies the artistic ideals of both sitter and creator, writes Angela Griffith
Mick O’Dea is this year’s recipient of the Ireland-US Council/Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award, for his study of the artist Stephen McKenna. The fact that O’Dea has been honoured in this way for a genre with which he is closely associated will not be a surprise to those familiar with his work. Despite the dominance of conceptual and abstracted forms in contemporary art practice, many artists continue to negotiate with the processes of portrait-making and O’Dea’s portraits address issues such as the nature of representation and the construction of identities. Mimetic in approach, O’Dea is a persistent investigator of, and interpreter of, nature and the human form. He is a master draughtsman and a painter who relishes in the processes of image-making, the traces of which are visible on his work’s surfaces.
Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography at Belfast Exposed and the MAC this summer highlights the medium as a highly-charged, critical artform that constantly questions its own role in the construction of memories, writes Stephanie McBride
As a building commissioned by a State entity charged with the stewardship of a precarious energy resource, Bord Gáis Network Services Centre warrants some reflection on its relevance as a benchmark and path-finder, writes Seán O’Laoire