Joe Boyle Abstract Solo Show

Joe Boyle - "Moved" Solo Exhibition Gormleys Fine Art - Belfast - 26th Aug - 11th Sep 251 Lisburn Road, Belfast Tel: +44 (0)28 9066 3313 "I paint in intuitive response to some idea or theme about which I can feel passionate. By expressing my intuition in the abstract, I avoid the usual constraints of the determinate concepts associated with representation. I thereby achieve a greater freedom of expression. I find the ongoing improvisation implicit in abstraction immensely liberating. The inherent instability of improvisation is a conduit for my creativity. The challenge is to sustain that initial sense of freedom generated by the excitement of an impending expedition in search of judgements of taste. I try to overcome this difficulty by establishing spontaneous and emerging relationships between colour, line, tone and texture, with a view to exciting and igniting the canvas. I want my paintings to be complex and visually stunning, yet resolved into a unifying simplicity. I don't just take a “Line for a walk”, rather I invite Line, Tone, Texture and Colour on to my canvas and let them have a party". Joe Boyle 2010 Irish Art

The Saatchi Gift

William Langely in The Telegraph writes "that last week's announcement that Charles Saatchi, the adman turned art collector, is giving his £25 million gallery to the nation was remarkable for more than its generosity. The Saatchi fortune was made during the phenomenal rise of the brothers' advertising firm into the industry's first global mega-agency. The ideas that flowed from the Saatchis' fertile minds – "Labour Isn't Working" and the "Pregnant Man" campaign for the Health Education Council – made them the talked-about force in marketing. Born in Baghdad to Iraqi-Jewish parents, the boys had, from the beginning, a sense of being outsiders that nourished their creative instincts. It was through his first wife, Doris Lockhart, that Saatchi became interested in contemporary art. By 1985, he had his own gallery, and was snaffling up prime works on the scale of the Medicis. The cash-strapped London arts scene had never seen the kind of financial firepower that Charlie brought to the marketplace, and the whiff of Leftist disdain, even alarm, hung in the air. Yet Saatchi's support for contemporary art – and, in particular, young British artists such as Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and the thankless Hirst, has had a healthy effect, bringing lesser-known work into the mainstream, and created a thriving field where there was previously only scepticism and condescension. Even Brian Sewell, once Saatchi-basher-in-chief, has mellowed. Last year, he confessed: "Having long been among the most doubting of Saatchi's critics… I must argue that without assistance from any public funds… he has single-handedly taken over one prime and vital duty of Tate Modern – to keep us abreast of contemporary art elsewhere. I can think of no earlier collector of then contemporary art… who has done so much to achieve this end." In 2003, the Saatchi collection moved to London's old County Hall, and, two years ago, into the 70,000sq ft Duke of York's HQ building in Chelsea. It is the 200 core works here, including Emin's famous bed, that Saatchi has given to the nation. After he retires, the gallery will be renamed The Museum of Contemporary Art, thus removing Saatchi's name from his own creation. A typically modest touch? Or another cry for attention"?

Irish Art - Michael Egan and Sara Cunningham-Bell

Sara Cunningham-Bell & Michael Egan Michael Egan is a recent graduate who won the Graduate Prize at Ulster Society of Artists 2009 and was an Invited artist at the RUA. Sara Cunningham-Bell is an award-winning artist with work in the collections of Mater Hospital, Hastings Group, Pope Benedict XVI and many others. "Wall Street" is a play on the financial chaos we are experiencing world wide. It looks at the effect on children and the next generation. The "Brothers" is based on the competitive and supportive relationship between brothers within the family - both positive and negative. "Downhill to Finish" is based on the physical area of Downhill Beach County Antrim with the idea of how life is referred to as a race, and the challenge to run it with as much conviction on the last day, as on the first. "Towards More" is a play on the change of political power internationally, the upheaval of the old replaced with a contrasting new politics and the industrial wealth moving power from the West to East. Irish Art Michael Egan and Sara Cunningham-Bell Square Space Gallery - Belfast - 24th June - 29th July 2010 34 Shaftesbury Square Belfast, Tel: 02890 200850

The RA Art Show in London

Ossian Ward writes in TIME OUT that 'the RA's 'Summer Exhibition' presents itself as a bastion of openness and egalitarianism, but really, even after 242 years, it's still a microcosm of our sheltered art world: you're either in it by rights as a member of the club, or you get lucky enough to bask in its glow of exposure for a couple of months. Those hopefuls who submit and get accepted are generally corralled into the wall-to-wall blur of the Weston Rooms, while the Academicians pick and choose from their stable of mates for the grander galleries. Allen Jones RA (he of the objectifying table sculptures of kinkily clad women) takes centre stage by curating the opening salvos of fiery abstract paintings by John Hoyland RA and Jeffery Camp RA under the show's woolly rubric - 'raw'. The freshness of Albert Irvin RA and Maurice Cockrill RA (you get their credentials already...) proves that there's gestural fight in these old dogs yet, although Jones himself slightly does his selection down by describing it as the 'scribbling' room. So it is, on to the 'fiddly' and 'lumpy' room (my terminology this time), with Michael Criag Martin's overlapping letters and Matthew Collings and Emma Biggs providing eye-watering pattern, while David Nash's giant block of elm and Hughie O'Donohue's shapeless paintings give good girth. The hang 'em high ethos can diminish even painters as good as Tal R, Basil Beattie and Ed Ruscha in Room III (the 'blobby' one) but can also be a great leveller, reducing the perceived importance of big names by haphazard juxtaposition with relative unknowns. Similarly, in Fiona Rae's curated section - which reflects not only her own 'blingy'/'drippy' style but reserves the biggest space for a painting by her husband, Dan Perfect - the well-trodden roll call of decent Brit names is joined by what looks like a Rachel Kneebone sculpture, except it's actually by someone called Melissa Gamwell. That's part of the fun: not really knowing who's who until you locate the work's corresponding number in the compendious guide. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Claire Rollinson - Irish Art Featured Artist

Following Martin Gale's sell out solo show, Caroline Mullan launches into her summer show with a mix of quality art from her talented stable of gallery artists - some of the most collectable and respected artists in Ireland. Her latest new gallery artist - Claire Rollinson - features with 12 works and her exceptional paintings are sure to find favour with Mullan's regulars. Whilst collectors will no doubt want to add Rollinson's work to their collections, they will be spoilt for choice with others like William Crozier, Donald Teskey, Martin Gale, Lisa Ballard, Keith Wilson, Comhghall Casey, Geoffrey Robinson, Frances Ryan, Jacinta Feeney, Orla de Bri, Chris Wilson, Sean Campbell, Mary Theresa Keown, Padraig Macmiadhachain, Breon O'Casey, Michael McGuinness, Karen Nickell, Leo Higgins, Anna Campbell and Petr Holecek. Belfast collectors look forward to this summer show because it never fails to deliver quality and this year is no exception. A "must-see" show. Summer Mixed Show - Belfast Mullan Gallery - Belfast - Sat 19th June - End of Aug 2010 239 Lisburn Road, Belfast Tel: 02890 202434 http://www.mullangallery.com Irish Art