| Patrick O'Reilly (1957-) b.
Kilkenny |
|
portrait |
Patrick O'Reilly in the space of less
than a decade has advanced over the Irish art scene with the energy and seeming
unstoppability of an Atlantic gale. He first came to my own attention in the
prestigious Galway's Arts Week a few years ago, when he showed a large installation-style
work called "the Monkey Trap" -really, a whole nexus of thematically related but
wildly contrasting pieces. As I wrote at the time for 'The Irish Times', his only
problem seemed to be that of 'having to many ideas instead of too few'. This
fertility was teamed with astonishing technical resource; he seemed to have a one-man
factory at his disposal. The impression of a radical new talent was enhanced later
in the same year (1996) by his exhibition at the Hugh lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art
in Dublin. Where to fit him, and how to describe or label him? As
an installationaist? That among other things, yet as this present exhibition shows,
he is fully capable of producing small bronzes with a kind of dreamlike, surreal
exactitude as well as large works in fibreglass. A Pop Expressionist? He may
be pop in the sense he draws from contemporary imagery ranging from fair ground figures to
horror comics, but there is a humour and imaginative freedom in his approach which lifts
him well about the often lurid, tasteless and generally witless world of so much eighties
art, typified by the now almost forgotten trend known as Bad Painting. (was there
also something called Bad Sculpture? If so I cannot remember it).
O'Reilly is an eruptive, inventive and anarchic in his small pieces as in his
large ones. He is perfectly at home in his wide variations of scale and has even
constructed a stre3et sculpture in Dublin which he calls the 'Rockets' and which towers to
fifty feet high. However it would be an injustice to regard him as essentially a
virtuos of startling effects and quickfire technical invention; there is an underlying
note of social compassion and an identification with the lonely, the misfits and the
unwanted ones of society. The carnival of modern life he presents has it's shadows
and cruel spots, which may easily be missed behind a hectic or gaudy vitality. And
from a certain angle, O'Reilly can also be seem as one of the creators of a new kind
of folk culture and street mythology.
Brian Fallon, author and art critic |
|
Shows
| Selected Group Exhibitions |
| 1975-76 |
Belfast college of Art |
| 1997 |
Tefaf International Art fair, Maastricht |
| 1998 |
Sotheby's Art Auction (for musee d'Art de Tel Aviv) Paris
Tefaf International Art fair, Maastricht
85 Years of Sculpture, Mayor Gallery, London |
| 1999 |
Art Miami '99, International Art fair, Florida, USA
Annual Exhibition, RHA, Dublin
La Renaissaince Du Bijou, Gallery Piltzer, Paris
20th Century British Sculpture, The Haig Holland
Case '99 The Lavit Gallery, Cork |
| 2000 |
2000 Nains, A Bagatelle, Paris
Tefaf International Art fair, Maastricht
Annual Exhibition, RHA, Dublin
L'Art du Gardin, Paris
Solomon Gallery Summer Show, Dublin
L'Homme qui Marche, The Haig |
| One Man Exhibitions |
| 1996 |
The Monkey Trap, Galway Arts Festival
The Silent Scream, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin |
| 1997 |
The Porcalain Drum, The Mayor Gallery, London
The Soul Agent, the Model Arts Centre, Sligo
The Marching Hare, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast
The Loss of Love, The Gallery Piltzer, Paris |
| 1998 |
Art for Sale, Street Performance, Grafton street, Dublin
Various Postulations, Galway Arts festival
New Work, Solomon Gallery, Dublin
A Not So Still Life, triskel Artys Centre, Cork |
| 1999 |
A Broken Wing, The Mayor Gallery, London |
| 1999/2000 |
Nouveau Baroque, Gallerie piltzer, Paris |
| 2000 |
Galwerie Kyra, Maralt,Berlin |
| Commisions and Projects |
| 1998 |
The Boundry Kings, Street Sculpture, Thomas Street, Dublin
Bird, Street Sculpture, O'Connell Street, Dublin
Diamonds in the Soil, Theatre Production - with Macnas
Art by the Yard, Performance, Grafton Street, Dublin |
| 1999 |
DJ Kilkenny Arts Festival
Liberties Rocket, Dublin
Still Searching, City Theatre, Galway |
| 2000 |
The Last Days of Olie Deasy - with Macnas |
|