Gerry Dukes follows the money as hubris and greed fall victim to Tom Fitzgerald’s pen, as seen in his exhibition of watercolours at Limerick City Gallery as part of City of Culture
Tom Fitzgerald has been an active sculptor for many years with public commissions in his native Limerick and around the country, further east in Hanover and in the Far East in South Korea. But his practice has long been characterized by diversity. I recall a large-format drawing (on perspex) from the early 1980s with the intriguing title Design for a machine for constantly saying No. In fact nearly all his solo sculpture exhibitions have featured multi-media installations and drawings. Since he retired as Head of Sculpture at Limerick School of Art & Design in 2000 he has diversified even more, embarking on his lengthy series of ‘Cathleen Ni Houlihan’ low-relief wall sculptures, a large range of installations and now the drawings of The Celtic Zoo gathered here in book form by Occasional Press. The drawings reproduced here have been exhibited in Limerick, Westport and Athlone but to have them in portable form readily to hand is a real pleasure. The reproductions are not just faithful, they are sumptuous. All the drawings are on acid-free paper using pencil, ballpoint pen (red, green, blue and black), watercolour paints, little touches of acrylic and two small photographic collages. The final action was the application of melted beeswax to the drawings which enriches the watercolours, imparting a rare gloss or luminescence to them and lifting the acrylics into high visibility.
With the recent passing of Ronald Tallon, Seán Ó Laoire reflects on the end of an era and remembers Michael Scott, founder and charismatic figurehead of Scott Tallon Walker
Catherine Marshall assesses the unwavering artistic journey of Maria Simonds-Gooding in advance of her retrospective in Dublin
The class of 2014 is looking anew to the tangible joys of creativity, in contrast to its documentation, writes Gerry Walker of the trends emerging from this year’s graduate shows.