Peter Murray reflects on the cool Nordic aesthetic of Patricia Burns whose work is on view in January at the Taylor Galleries, Dublin.
Reassuringly familiar and yet also distanced and remote, the paintings of Patricia Burns remain in the mind long after the actual images have been viewed. The images she depicts are generally straightforward, but also deceptively simple. A road, shrouded in mist, bends into the distance, the faint outline of telegraph poles marking its curving route. In a suburban housing estate, trees and houses are silhouetted against a pale sky. While these are deceptively normal images, an unsettling mood pervades Burns’ work. These surroundings are familiar, but they are also alien. Points of reference that might reassure, such as cars, people or animals, are rarely included. In the estates, the streets are deserted, while the houses themselves seem on the point of being enveloped by fog. Burns rarely depicts trees in full leaf, more often they are stark outlines, with bare branches reaching upwards, silhouetted against layers of mist.
As Europe confronts its current refugee crisis, Kathryn Milligan looks back to 1916 when a Belgian artist was one of the 2,300 Belgian refugees who sought shelter in Ireland.
Recent excavations at Rathfarnham Castle have brought the former inhabitants into focus, prompting Simon Loftus to recall some vivid episodes from the family’s history.
Hilary Pyle takes a fresh look at John Butler Yeats, the patriarch of Ireland’s leading artistic family.