This is a showcase of key examples of Irish and international contemporary art practice acquired by Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane for its collection through purchases and donations. Works on view include Storm by Fergus Martin who explores a minimalist, post-conceptual work process that includes a universal self-enquiry, articulated through surfaces that initially appear calm but with further observation reveal the turbulences and restlessness of nature, particularly the sea.
‘Why It’s Time for The Imperial, Again’ by Gerard Byrne charts, through an installation of film and photography, the historic gap from what was luxurious and technologically advanced twenty years ago when the Chrysler Imperial was launched, to the fetishes of contemporary consumerism. ‘Fieldcraft’ is a thought-provoking installation with drawings from the series ‘Life again. Light again. Leaf again. Love again’ by Garret Phelan that resonates a universal concern with changing habitat and cultures and hybrid breeds that are emerging particularly in birdlife. Drawing equally on traditions of abstraction and figuration, ‘Outskirts’ by Philip Guston was a bid to make palpable an inherent sense of existential doubt that the artist relied on throughout his career. Guston developed an iconography, which drew on his early life and the personal universe of his studio, to find meaning in the world. ‘Outskirts’ was first shown in the Marlborough Gallery in the famously controversial show in 1970 when the artist returned to figuration. ‘Black Relief over Yellow and Orange’ by Ellsworth Kelly, his first work in a public collection in Ireland, was selected from his exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in 2006. ‘Untitled (Three figures)’ by Francis Bacon is one of six unfinished paintings by the artist in the collection. They are unique among his paintings on public display since they are incomplete and thus reveal his unorthodox techniques in their raw state. Other artists include Paul Seawright, Andrew Grassie, Seán Shanahan, Isabel Nolan, Jaki Irvine, Elizabeth Magill, Brian Maguire, Niamh O Malley, Noel Sheridan and Sean Scully.
