The Spring 22 showcases a superb selection of articles to enjoy, from the artists On View across Ireland from March to the end of May, as well as many informed and beautifully illustrated articles, featuring Hughie O’Donoghue, new work from Francis Matthews, Anne Ryan and Aleana Egan, interview with Elaine Hoey, Deirdre Brennan, Electronic Sheep, the new ESB headquarters, Port of Cork Collection, Drimnagh Castle, Yeats Comic Art and much more.
John P o’Sullivan previews Hughie o’Donoghue’s latest suite of paintings of diverse historic characters spanning 1,500 years of history
Dublin artist Francis Matthews manages to give the impression of reality without becoming enmeshed in itemising endless physical detail, writes Aidan Dunne
Artist Frances Kelly didn’t aim for exact likenesses in her portraits of people or flowers, but rather for some inner, more abstract, significance, writes Hilary Pyle
Stephanie McBride explores Deirdre Brennan’s photographic response to James Joyce’s Ulysses
James Howley is impressed by Grafton Architects and O’Mahony Pike’s rebuild of the ESB headquarters and believes it is a building of international importance
A Micheál Mac Liammóir watercolour leads Christian Dupont back to Yeats’ ‘The Stolen Child’
John Hutchinson considers that Aleana Egan’s art is perhaps best read as a set of related parts, which together trace her experience of both outer and inner worlds
Mike Fitzpatrick suggests that Anne Ryan’s new works function as sculpture, yet are figurative paintings in the round
Brenda Aherne and Helen Delany, AKA electronic Sheep, are making waves in the international arena, as Hilary O’Kelly recounts
Elaine Hoey tells Rachel Thomas that light and colour inhabit a space in a way that is very ethereal, but has a volume, not unlike virtual reality
Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch reveals Sr Mary Concepta’s design and decoration of the Oratory of the Sacred Heart in Dún Laoghaire
Peter Murray highlights paintings from the recent collection donated to the Crawford Art Gallery by the Port of Cork Company
Performance artist Amanda Coogan’s self-portrait Medea became part of the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland at the University of Limerick in 2003. Silently elegant, cool and composed, perfectly posed and precise, the image would be as much at home in the hallowed corridors of Vogue as at the university. If we were to take the work at face value in this era of Instagram and selfie euphoria, we could easily assume that the artist is a queen sitting confidently on her chaise-longue throne, her gaze intense and still and her sumptuous blue dress cascading to the floor. We might even feel slightly jealous or disgruntled by the obvious glamour and sophistication on display.
