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MFA (Hons), SCA; MSA, SCA. Sydney Univerisity.
Irish Australian artist; born Dublin Ireland 1954. Art studies in Ireland; he was apprenticed to his uncle - a painter and etcher. Studied at National Art School Sydney, and Sydney Gallery School, Sydney University (painting, drawing, sculpture). Studied sculpture with Eberhart Franke at The Rocks, Sydney. Completed Masters of Fine Art Honours, and Masters of Studio Art at SCA, Sydney University. Worked in Sydney as a maker and restorer of violins and as a musician, plays a variety of musical instruments. As a writer, he has had poetry and short stories published. Alan's main mode of revealing through his life has been painting; he has a great knowledge of art, with a particular focus on artists of Australia.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a painter, I am as much influenced by writers as by other artists. My work has many parallels with literature. My current cow paintings stem partly from the beginning of James Joyce's, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and a section of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, were the dying Bergotte views a section of Vermeer's View of Delft, in particular, a yellow wall. Other influences touched on during the creation of this body of work were the works and philosophies of artist's Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter, and of course the cows roaming the fields near where I live played a great part.
In my work over time I have always tried to give the viewer an understanding of the artist's journeys from abstract gene ralities to particularities, unravelling some of the mysteries of representing, and deconstructing assumptions that come between understanding and perception. If an artist can make his subject matter, matter to such an extent that it becomes inexpressive, they have reached the core of revealing what it is to be an artist. I love to paint, I love to play. My maternal grandmother taught me to sing in English and think in Irish, and to remember that we do not think in words. This has served me well so far in that I have been able to express myself through the mediums of music and the visual arts in this chaos that some have described as a charmed life .
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2011 Frances Keevil Gallery, Double Bay
Installation. See Street Gallery
2010 Bowral Sculpture Show, Craigieburn Retreat, Bowral
Nolan on Lovel, Drawing Exhibition
Eva Breuer Art Dealer
Bloomsday, Liverpool
2009 Mary Place Gallery, Paddington
Ceramacism. Delmar Gallery
Bloomsday, Liverpool
Acoustoopticaldinatorio Delmar Gallery
2008 Fishers Ghost Art Award
Mary Place Gallery, Paddington
Bloomsday, Liverpool
2007 Blake Prize, Finalist
Mary Place Gallery, Paddington
Bloomsday, Liverpool
2006 Burton on King Street Gallery
Liverpool Municipal Library - Bloomsday
2004 Fishers Ghost Art Award (Finalist), Campbelltown
Frances Keevil Annual Art Exhibition, Woollahra
2001 Blacktown City Exhibition (prize for sculpture)
Waverly Woollahra Exhibition (prize for painting)
Tamworth Regional Gallery, Tamworth
Gymea Regional Gallery, Sydney
Access Gallery, Sydney
INSTALLATIONS
'Mary' Art Gallery of NSW.
Acoustoopticaldinoratorio. Delmar Gallery
Exile. Botanical Gardens, Sydney
PUBLICATIONS AND TEXT
A Short History of the Perpetual Now
'The Bookshelf' Look magazine
Acoustoopticialdinoratorio text
'Love Letters' ABC publications
Zinewest, poetry magazine. 07, 09
Anthology. 09. NSW Writers
'Violin and Bow Makers of Australia'
FILM
'Act of Betrayal' CBS, Fox
Acoustoopticaldinoratorio
Bloomsday
'The red violin'
The gig
