With the tragedy of September 11 there were smaller cultural casualties too. Set to launch the dynamic mixed media works in a show entitled "re:Sources/in:Sights" at Axel-Rabin gallery on September 12, artist James Kieran McGonnell was unable to open. Fortunately, none of the paintings in the downtown Gallery were damaged, and the Cork-born artist, who has a particular love … [Read more...] about Portraits by the Artist
Art
Billy Collins as Soul Friend
A visit to Ireland with Poet Laureate Billy Collins. What draws an assortment of poets to Ireland to study with Billy Collins? If you've been to the Beara Peninsula, you understand the allure of this mountainous region in West Cork; if you are familiar with Billy Collins' poetry, its quirky bends and heart-stopping imagery, you would never even ask the question. … [Read more...] about Billy Collins as Soul Friend
The Beckett of Paint
"I live, you might say, in gilded squalor," Dublin-born painter Francis Bacon once remarked, explaining his attachment to 7 Reece Mews, the spartan twelve-by-eight-foot London flat that was both his home and studio for the last 30 years of his life. For Bacon, the drab, confining space, accessed by a ship's ladder, was more than just a place to hang his hat. With its … [Read more...] about The Beckett of Paint
Hibernia: A Twist
on Tradition
The familiar swirls and knots of Celtic design are under renovation – American style. "American Celtic – Beyond the Ninth Wave" brings the Celtic art of 21st-century American artists to several cities across the U.S., including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Milwaukee, Lexington (K.Y.), and New York. The recent resurgence in interest in all things Celtic has drawn many … [Read more...] about Hibernia: A Twist
on Tradition
Hibernia: Irish
U.N. Sculpture
The United Nations recently received a sculpture from the Irish government. The work, by renowned Galway artist John Behan, celebrates the Irish diaspora and their contribution to the world.
Entitled Arrival, the work portrays Irish emigrants debarking from a ship. If this sounds like a typical Famine commemoration, it's not. As the Irish Minister of State at the Department … [Read more...] about Hibernia: Irish
U.N. Sculpture