Basil Blackshaw

Fenton Gallery

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Fenton Art Gallery: Basil Blackshaw

Basil Blackshaw: 15th November - 17th December

This exhibition marks a very rare opportunity to see new work by one of Ireland’s most important artists. In his seventy-sixth year he presents this series of powerful new works. These are paintings by an artist at the very height of his career whose practice places him with contemporary masters of the art world.

Blackshaw’s work has been developing in a fascinating direction over the past decade. As Brian Fallon has observed: “In recent years his work has grown even freer, with strong elements of humour, fantasy and nostalgia added, and the scale is often impressively large and commanding”. Taking inspiration from his own life around Co. Antrim; nature but also the scrawls of graffiti on a wall or the discovery of a child’s nature jotter in a puddle; Blackshaw weaves remarkable art from seemingly chance encounters. A birdcage, a tree, a pigeon, a butterfly shape, suggests both an engagement with tradition and a watchful detachment.

To his viewers Blacksahw’s art communicates a sense of the essential or perhaps the existential. In this work he seems to deconstruct possibilities of romantic interpretation. In spite of this the viewer is held by the intensity, mystery and integrity of his art and always by the courage of his paintwork. Blackshaw’s beautiful restrained colour is immediately recognisable both in its tonality and activity.

Basil Blackshaw was born in Glengormley, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1932. He attended the Methodist College Belfast and went on to study at The Belfast College of Art (1949-51). His talent was recognised early and in 1951 the committee for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts awarded him a scholarship to study in Paris. Since this time Blackshaw has exhibited extensively most recently at the Centre Cultural Irlandais, Paris in 2006. Eamonn Mallie published a major book on the artist in 2003. Basil Blackshaw’s work can be found in major art collections including AIB, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Ulster Museum.

* Please contact the gallery for prices and availability of all works shown.

Couple
mixed media on canvas,
122 x 91cm

Fenton Gallery : Contemporary Irish Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland

Homepage | Available Irish Artwork | Publications - 'Representing Art in Ireland' | Previous Exhibitions | Contact Information