EAMON COLMAN The Width of Yourself
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EAMON COLMAN The Width of Yourself
Tara Murphy requests the pleasure of your company at the private view of EAMON COLMAN The Width of Yourself to be opened by Dr. Marie Bourke Cultural historian, former Keeper - Head of Education at the National Gallery of Ireland on Thursday 6 February 2020 from 6pm to 8pm at Solomon Fine Art, Balfe Street, Dublin 2 tel: +353 (0)1 672 4429 / email: info@solomonfineart.ie / www.solomonfineart.ie The exhibition continues until Saturday 29 February 2020 Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 10am – 5.30pm / Saturday: 11am – 4pm front/inside cover: Tangling shadows, shaking all roots, deep in solitude, 2019, mixed media on Somerset paper, under acrylic, 76 x 104cm back cover: The sodden nest of a cold-eyed thrush, 2019-20, oil & mixed media on 280g Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
Painting Place The appropriateness of this shift is particularly clear in Cold earth slept below the valley of the thrush and
The sodden nest of a cold-eyed thrush. Both evoke the way climate change is inscribing itself ever more
Each of Eamon Colman’s paintings is a new conversation. One between the particular possibilities open to emphatically on the already battered and weather-worn Kilkenny uplands, rendering them more ragged,
a painter and the almost unlimited material available through a genuinely open approach to engaging with drearier, wetter for longer periods each year. Living in that raw place, frequently grey or white with mist or
place. A conversation that draws on both the corporeal memory of his walking body and a lively curiosity winter snow, or saturated by days or weeks of incessant rain, and battered and torn by violent storms, how
about just where that body finds itself in the contingent world at any given time. Whether quick or slow, that could Colman not respond? In the last few years the surfaces of his paintings have more often seemed almost
conversation is enacted physically in the studio but only concluded when Colman has pondered what he’s mauled into being, by turn battered, fragile, slippery, textured by the traces of stain and run-off. His attention
made and found the evocative words that become a title. (An imaginative act in its own right informed by his to surface is played out to extraordinary effect in Horace there by Homer stands – unusually a borrowed phrase
deep engagement with poetry, particularly contemporary Irish poetry). (from Yeats’ Mad As the Mist and Snow)– and in the small Golden fields showed wet and clear. Both of which
testify to the acute attention both to the particularities of everyday world in which he is immersed and to the
Colman listens to places as much as he looks into them. (Sound, from a bell’s tolling to curlew call, is a broader resonances that permeate his own responses to it. Yet his willingness to acknowledge the worsening
significant point of reference in these works). Walking in long-inhabited places, he attends closely to the stories of an already harsh local climate – something he has verified for himself by logging the decrease in sunny days
and dreams that underpin our sense of them. In the studio, his touchstones when working are the many direct where he lives, walks and works - has in no way inhibited the range or subtlety of these recent works. Despite
impressions and inferences gathered while out walking. In consequence, it will be self-evident to him that in the quieter role of colour in works like A leaning into the light or Swimming through the fog, the night stops at
painting Above the small holding radio signals penetrate the silence he should evoke both the tangible site of the hill of souls, their capacity to evoke the rich and shifting complexities of a place remains as potent as ever.
the small holding and the radio signals that float, invisible, above it. Indeed, perhaps more so now than ever before.
Previously, Colman has made exceptional use of all the possibilities of high key colour. However, his 2017 Colman’s recent paintings acknowledge the rawness of the world around him, animated as it is by a difficult
exhibition, Thinking-in-movement (at the Stern Studio Gallery, Vienna) indicated that he was increasingly history and perhaps more difficult future. They serve, that is, not simply as evocations of a place in the here and
modifying that approach, muting his colour to explore new possibilities. In retrospect, this appears as an now, but are also shot through with traces of a complex past slipping away and intimations of various possible
obvious response to his increasing immersion in rural upland places in northeast County Kilkenny, where futures. As Colman himself has acknowledged: “the earth is a living being like you or I … it’s an organism that
he and his family now live in a house situated at nine hundred feet above sea level. By 2019 Colman had breathes and communicates”. These paintings are, I suggest, a clear-sighted response to what one corner of
abandoned the given rectangle of a stretched canvas to work on paper, ‘finding’ the support for his images as the earth is telling us now.
he went along and so stressing qualities of surface and edge. This puts greater emphasis on tactility, on the Dr. Iain Biggs
contingent and provisional aspects of the painting process, so that the images appear wrought rather than Honorary Research Fellow, University of Dundee
simply painted. January 2020
2 3
Altocumulus clouds Horace there by
blow dreaming Homer stands
to altitude
2018-2019 2018-2019
mixed media mixed media
on Somerset 360g on Somerset 360g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
76 x 104 cm 76 x 104 cm
4 5
In the imaginary Cold earth slept
garden, one can below the valley
still hear the of the thrush
Angelus bell
2019 2018-2019
mixed media mixed media
on Somerset 360g on Somerset 360g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
76 x 104 cm 76 x 104 cm
6 7
Painting for Sonja. Above the smallholding
The river wall is reached, radio signals penetrate
sudden loneliness the silence
and then peace
2020 2019-2020
oil & mixed media oil & mixed media
on Somerset 360g on Somerset 360g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
124 x 111 cm 60 x 56 cm
8 9
Songs from the mountain A leaning into the light
sing of two worlds: one
hidden, the other young
2019-2020 2019-2020
oil & mixed media oil & mixed media
on Somerset 360g on Somerset 360g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
60 x 56 cm 60 x 56 cm
10 11
Swimming through the Through the forest undergrowth
fog, the night stops at the wind hesitated and moved
the hill of souls towards day
2019-2020 2019-2020
oil & mixed media oil & mixed media
on Somerset 360g on Somerset 360g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
60 x 56 cm 60 x 56 cm
12 13
The wind shred banner Moorhen call from
of the autumn light the smell of the
pond, it seems to
furrow the smooth
surface of silence
2019-2020 2019-2020
oil & mixed media oil & mixed media
on Yopo Japanese 280g on Yopo Japanese 280g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
37 x 43 cm 37 x 43 cm
14 15
Soft winged as an evening Golden fields showed
owl, the night came wet and clear
pink and magenta
2019-2020 2019-2020
oil & mixed media oil & mixed media
on Yopo Japanese 280g on Yopo Japanese 280g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
37 x 43 cm 37 x 43 cm
16 17The cold north air, Day came to sunset’s
like a lens of ice, windless calm, where
transforms and the air was still, heavy
clarifies the and warm between
curlew call the hedges
2019-2020 2019-2020
oil & mixed media oil & mixed media
on Yopo Japanese 280g on Yopo Japanese 280g
acid free paper, acid free paper,
under acrylic under acrylic
37 x 43 cm 37 x 43 cm
18 192006 Knot of Souls, South Tipperary Arts Centre, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary
EAMON COLMAN Salt River, St. David’s University, Wales; Oriel Queens Hall Gallery, Wales; Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin
2004 Africa 22º – 35º S, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin
Eamon Colman was born in Dublin in 1957. He is an elected member of Aosdána since 2007 in recognition of his major contribution to 2002 Walking Vermont, Vermont Studio Center, USA;
Irish culture. His professional career spans from 1979, having created nearly forty solo exhibitions presented nationally and internationally. Walking Vermont, Vangard Gallery, Cork
In 1997, he was invited to host a major mid-term retrospective exhibition of his work entitled ‘Post Cards Home’ at the Royal Hibernian 2000 Rain on Water, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
Academy, Dublin at the age of 39 years. This was accompanied by a monograph on his work by writer and art critic Brian Mc Avera 1998 Festival Interceltique de Lorient, Palais des Congres, Lorient, France
entitled ‘Dreams from The Lion’s Head, The Work of Eamon Colman’ published by Four Fields Press. A 25-year retrospective of his 1997 Post Cards Home, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin (mid-term retrospective exhibition)
work is featured in a substantial publication by Gandon Editions, Kinsale: ‘Profile 25 – Eamon Colman’ (2006). In 1989, he won the First 1996 Digging for Pearls, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
Prize Painting Award in EVA International; in 2001 First Prize Painting Award in Eigse, Carlow Arts Festival; in 2002, he was the first Irish 1995 Digging for Pearls, Driochead Arts Centre, Drogheda
artist to be awarded Full Fellowship Award from the Vermont Studio Centre, USA; in 2005, he won a CCAT Interreg Major Award for 1994 Home of the Snake King, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
touring an exhibition in Wales, UK and in 2018 he was awarded a Culture Ireland GB18 Award. His work has been included in exhibitions 1992 Islands, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
representing contemporary Irish art in Brussels, Denmark, France, Spain, UK, Hong Kong, Canada and USA. 1991 One man show, Sligo Arts Week, Sligo
1990 India, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
SOLO/TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS Dreams from the Lion’s Head, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin
2020 The Width of Yourself, Solomon Fine Art, Dublin 1988 River Walk, Vangard Gallery, Cork
2019 The Width of Yourself, Solas Art Gallery, Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim 1986 Eamon Colman / Nick Miller, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin (two-person exhibition)
2019 Double Vision, Eamon Colman and Blaise Smith, Kilkenny Arts Festival (two-person exhibition) John Piper/ Eamon Colman, Windsor Arts Centre, London (two-person exhibition)
2018 Thaw, Oriel Q (Queens Hall Gallery), Narberth, Wales, UK (part of Culture Ireland GB18 programme)
Mark Making, Eamon Colman and Gary Robinson, Claremorris Gallery, Co. Mayo (two-person exhibition) SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017 Thinking-In-Movement, Stern Studio Gallery, Vienna, Austria 2019, 18 Solomon Fine Art, Dublin
2015 Walking at three miles per hour, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin 2019, 18, 11, 07, 05, 04, 03,
2014 Works on paper, Oriel Queens Hall Gallery, Narbert, Wales 1996, 95, 92, 91 Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition, RHA Gallery, Dublin
2013 Panorama: A Review, Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, Co. Tyrone (retrospective exhibition) 2019, 18, 14, 13 VUE Irish Contemporary Art Fair, RHA Gallery, Dublin
Scattered Showers, Christchurch Gallery, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork 2019 Nineteen Hundred & Nineteen, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo; Irish Consulate, New York, USA
2012 There is no season for margins, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin 2016 Catherine Hammond Gallery, West Cork
2011 Monument, Stern Studio Gallery, Vienna, Austria 2015, 05 - 01 Eigse, VISUAL, Carlow
2010 Before the dark gets stronger than the light, RUA RED, Dublin 2015, 11, 05, 91 Boyle Arts Festival, Co. Roscommon
What is real or actual, everything or nothing, Oriel Queens Hall Gallery, Wales 2015 Impressions of W.B. Yeats, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo
2008 Remnant, Cecille R. Hunt Gallery, Webster University, St Louis, USA 2014 – 04 Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin
Vantage, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin 2014 Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, Midsummer Exhibition
2007 Breath of the River, Galeri Caernarfon Cyf, Wales 2012 The Good Children Gallery, New Orleans, USA (three-person exhibition)
2006 Between Bog and a Sagging Wall, Vangard Gallery, Cork 2010, 03 Kilkenny Arts Festival
20 212008 Fís, Liverpool Capital of Culture, UK (invited artist) AWARDS, RESIDENCIES & COMMISSIONS The Danish Arts Council 2007, 05 Nicholas Gallery, Belfast 2018 Culture Ireland GB18 Award, Wales, UK Wexford County Council 2007 Colour Fields, Draíocht Arts Centre, Dublin 2018, 04 Arts Act Award, Kilkenny Co. Council Irish Contemporary Arts Society Art Miami, Miami, USA (with Hillsboro Fine Art) 2018, 87, 86 Artist in Residence, Tyrone Guthrie Centre Kings House Museum, Boyle 2006, 1994, 91 Royal Hibernian Academy Banquet Exhibition, Dublin 2017 Culture Ireland Award, Vienna, Austria Tralee Regional Technical College 2005, 03 Wexford Opera Festival Exhibition, Greenacres Gallery 2015 ArtLinks Award, Kilkenny Co. Council Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast Amber Arts Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland 2009 Ballyfermot Travellers Action Project – Book Project (residency & commission) AIB Bank Brussels 2004 Irish Art, Angera, Italy (to coincide with Irish EU Presidency) Cill Rialaig Project (residency) Bank of Ireland Brussels Grand Gala, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin 2015 – 05 Ballinglen Art Foundation, Co. Mayo (residency) Deutsche Bank 2000 Aer Rianta, Dublin Airport Inish Lacken Project, Connemara, Co. Galway (residency) Citibank 1997 Small Works, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin Uni Truck, Belfast, Northern Ireland (commission) American Express Landscape & Recollection, The Ballinglen Experience, RHA Gallery 2005 CCAT Interreg Major Award for touring exhibition in Wales McCann Fitzgerald 1996 Irish Art, Dillon Gallery, London 2002 Percent for Art Commission, Roscommon Arts Centre Irish Life 1995 Irish Art, Singapore Full Fellowship Award, Vermont Studio Centre, USA Arthur Anderson Civic Forum, Barcelona, Spain 2001 Eigse, First prize painting Smurfit Ireland Group 1994 Iontas, Sligo Art Gallery & RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin Percent for Art Commission, The Bell Centre, Darndale, Dublin Fyffes Ireland Irish Artists, Donal / Maxwell, Philadelphia, USA Euro World Project, First prize with Crumlin Children’s Hospital, Dublin Delta Airlines 1994, 88, 82 An tOireachtas 2000 Art Flight awarded by the Arts Council of Ireland Norwich Union 1993 Irish Showcase Exhibition, Hong Kong 1999 Residency in Hirsholmene, awarded by the Danish Council of Artists KPMG Touchstone Gallery, Hong Kong 1996, 91 Arts Council of Ireland, Materials Grant Sheen Falls Hotel Monaghan Arts Centre, Monaghan Open 1995 Arts Council of Ireland, Major Artist Bursary Jury’s Inn Manchester 1992 Contemporary Irish Art Society, Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, Dublin 1993 Arts Flight to New York, Arts Council & Aer Lingus Gresham Hotel 1990 Images from Ireland, Brussels / European Artist of Promise, Brussels / Echoes, Rue de Spa, Brussels SIPTU Print Award The Merrion Inn 1988 Claremorris Open, Mayo 1992 Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Co. Mayo (residency) Clery’s Select Tea Rooms Celtic Vision, Bank of Ireland, Dublin Set design ‘After the Picnic’ (Evelyn Waugh), Players Theatre, Trinity College McCormack & Sons Open Circle, Scotland 1989 EV+A First Prize Painting The Green Lizard Restaurant De Bello Gallery, Toronto, Ontario Canada 1988 Studio Exchange for one year to India, Calcutta Artist Union Vermont Studio Centre, USA Irish Art, Knapp Gallery 1987 Purchase Award S.A.D.E Philip Docahalo Corp. Florida 1988, 84 EV+A, Limerick Unitruck 1987 S.A.D.E 1987, Cork COLLECTIONS Fitzsimons & Mallon Solicitors 1986 Independent Artists, Guinness Hop Store, Dublin Irish Museum of Modern Art (Gordon Lambert Collection) de Vere’s (private collection) Celtic Vision, Museo Español de Arte Contemporaneo & Palacio Municipal de Exposition, Spain Office of Public Works – Government Collection Living Art Exhibition, Hugh Lane Municipal Art Gallery, Dublin The Arts Council of Ireland 22 23
Eamon Colman: The Width of Yourself p. 13 Through the forest undergrowth the wind hesitated and moved towards day
2019-20, oil and mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 60 x 56 cm
6 - 29 February 2020
p. 14 The wind shred banner of the autumn light
CATALOGUE LIST 2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
front Tangling shadows, shaking all roots deep in solitude p. 15 Moorhen call from the smell of the pond, it seems to furrow the smooth surface of silence
cover 2019, mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 76 x 104cm 2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
p. 4 Altocumulus clouds blow dreaming to altitude p. 16 Soft winged as an evening owl, the night came pink and magenta
2018-19, mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 76 x 104cm 2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
p. 5 Horace there by Homer stands
p. 17 Golden fields showed wet and clear
2018-19, mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 76 x 104cm
2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
p. 6 In the imaginary garden, one can still hear the Angelus bell
p. 18 The cold north air, like a lens of ice, transforms and clarifies the curlew call
2019, mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 76 x 104cm
2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
p. 7 Cold earth slept below the valley of the thrush
p. 19 Day came to sunset’s windless calm, where the air was still, heavy and warm between the hedges
2018-19, mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 76 x 104cm
2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
p. 8 Painting for Sonja. The river wall is reached, sudden loneliness and then peace
back The sodden nest of a cold-eyed thrush
2020, mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 124 x 111 cm
cover 2019-2020, oil and mixed media on 280gram Yopo Japanese paper, under acrylic, 37 x 43 cm
p. 9 Above the small holding radio signals penetrate the silence
2019-20, oil and mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 60 x 56 cm
First published in 2020 by Solomon Fine Art
p. 10 Songs from the mountain sing of two worlds: one hidden, the other young ISBN: 978-1-9163536-0-2
2019-20, oil and mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 60 x 56 cm
Photography: Anthony Hobbs
p. 11 A leaning into the light
2019-20, oil and mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 60 x 56 cm All images in this catalogue are protected by copyright and should not be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder.
Details of the copyright holder to be obtained from Solomon Fine Art
p. 12 Swimming through the fog, the night stops at the hill of souls
2019-20, oil and mixed media on Somerset 360g acid free paper, under acrylic, 60 x 56 cm © Solomon Fine Art and the artist
24EAMON COLMAN
The Width of Yourself
6 - 29 February 2020
Solomon Fine Art, Balfe Street, Dublin 2, Ireland / t: +353 (0)1 672 4429 / e: info@solomonfineart.ie / www.solomonfineart.ieYou can also read
