Declan Byrne 

Declan Byrne has been a member of the KCAT studio since 2004, where he has developed a unique and highly dedicated body of work in painting, drawing, and sculpture. He has shown extensively in Ireland, including at the Linnnnenhall Arts Centre Castlebar, F.E. McWilliam Gallery Banbridge, the Atypical Gallery Belfast, West Cork Arts Centre Skibbereen, OPW Galleries Farmleigh House Dublin, Galway Arts Centre, and Crawford Gallery Cork. He has also shown internationally, including at UNT Art Galleries Dallas Texas, the Beyond Festival Leeds, Project Ability Gallery Glasgow, Freight Gallery Fremantle Australia, Gallery Prabelli, Wiltz, Luxembourg, Museum of everything London, Kunsthaus Kannen Germany, and the Art Brut Biennale The Netherlands. Declan has work in the Irish National Collection at the Crawford Gallery Cork.

Declan’s work is exquisite and accessible on many levels, and the artist relishes every opportunity to share his voice through his work and to be with others as they experience it. Each of Declan’s paintings is created over months, with dots and various blocks and shapes of colour carefully selected and then deliberately applied side by side, eventually speeding out in all directions over the whole canvas. The result is an intricate patchwork in which there is a remarkable balance between cooler blues and warmer yellows, oranges, reds, and ochres. However, while the subjects and figures Declan starts with do continue to reveal themselves to varying degrees in finished works, for the most part figuration is largely kept at a distance through abstraction, and is never foregrounded enough to detract from the exquisite formation of colours, as though each painting presents a multi-coloured ariel view of an exquisitely coloured landscape. Declan produces sculptural works which also involve a vigorous engagement with the materiality of paint. Large quantities of small different coloured quadratic shapes of dried acrylic are piece by piece carefully and methodically glued over the entire surface of found objects in a way that creates a dynamic multi-coloured surface and coating similar to his paintings.

This exhibition is supported with funding from the Arts Council of Ireland.