As part of the Skibbereen Arts Festival, there will be a poetry reading by Theo Dorgan at the gallery of Friday, July 29 at 6:30 pm.

Catherine Barron, John Doherty, Mollie Douthit, Martin Gale, Maeve McCarthy

July 1 to August 4, 2016

Opening Reception:  Saturday, July 2nd, 6 – 8 pm

This large group show brings together work by five of Ireland’s most interesting realist painters.  A preview is available here or visiting the gallery on July 1 and 2 before the opening reception.

In a world dominated by digital imagery and photography, the goal of these painters is not to merely represent what they see.  They show us what we have overlooked and the undercurrents of meaning in our interactions with the world around us.

Catherine Barron explores distorted perception on the surface of old LP records.  John Doherty celebrates the forgotten glories of old towns or neglected structures in out of the way places.  Mollie Douthit shows us the powerful presence of small, ordinary objects.  Martin Gale’s paintings of rural back roads and isolated people create a sense of mystery.  Maeve McCarthy investigates old gardens and plants.  All create work that is challenging, thoughtful and ultimately very rich.

June 3 to 30, 2016

Opening Reception:  Saturday, June 4, 6 – 8 pm
Speaker: Susan Keating, Deputy Editor, Irish Arts Review

Joe Wilson is a painter interested in the raw physicality of painting and of being in nature.  In 2016, at the invitation of this gallery, he explored the rugged Caha Mountains on the Beara peninsula in West Cork.  After many weeks of climbing and hill walking, making sketches and taking photographs along the way, he returned to the studio to make extraordinary paintings that express something about the physical terrain itself and the energy required in traversing it.

Born in England in 1947, Wilson has lived and worked in Ireland since 1979.  He taught at the National College of Art & Design from 1983 to 2009.