Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane is delighted to present former Turner Prize nominee Stephen McKenna’s latest exhibition, Perspectives of Europe. This unique exhibition features works created throughout McKenna’s career, focusing specifically on cityscapes, parks and trees.
Perspectives of Europe opens to the public at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane on 23rd July. The artist’s deep interest in the structures which underlie the natural and built environment is displayed thematically in groups of paintings depicting classical columns, city ports and specific close-ups of verdant foliage.
Stephen McKenna has worked in several European cities and currently lives in County Carlow. This selection of paintings, from the 1980s to the present, charts the artist’s experience of working in urban and rural environments and reveals his response to the cultural histories that form their identities.
Director, Barbara Dawson, said: “His is a keen and original vision which is informed by his metier –the millennia of Western mythology and its history. Alongside his paintings of cities, in this exhibition there is a focus on the artist’s love of nature in his depictions of foliage. He delights in opening his and our eyes to the poetry contained in their painterly representation ordinary and extraordinary in their compositional structures”.
This exhibition is presented in partnership with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, and features both national and international loans. It is open to the public until 4th October 2015. A fully illustrated catalogue is on sale in the bookshop detailing all works in both exhibitions.
-
Profile
Stephen McKenna was born in London and studied at the Slade School of Art. He lived and worked throughout Europe since the 1960s, spending time in Belgium, Germany and Italy. He now lives in County Carlow. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1986. He was elected President of the Royal Hibernian Academy from 2005 until 2009 and was a member of Aosdána. McKenna died in May 2017.
-
Published Material
The Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe Gallery Guide is available here
Stephen McKenna , Tara Street from Liberty Hall, Dublin, 2010, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Stephen McKenna, Madeira, 2008, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Stephen McKenna, Marmara Evening, 2008, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Stephen McKenna, Greenwich Park, 1984, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Stephen McKenna, Pantheon, 2013, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Stephen McKenna, Small Homage to Vitruvius, 2013, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Stephen McKenna, Large Doric Pillar, 2013, oil on canvas © Stephen McKenna
Lord Mayor Críona Ní Dhálaigh with Stephen McKenna at the opening of his exhibition, Perspectives of Europe
Installation view of Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe, 2015. Image by Ros Kavanagh
Installation view of Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe, 2015. Image by Ros Kavanagh
Installation view of Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe, 2015. Image by Ros Kavanagh
Installation view of Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe, 2015. Image by Ros Kavanagh
Installation view of Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe, 2015. Image by Ros Kavanagh
Installation view of Stephen McKenna Perspectives of Europe, 2015. Image by Ros Kavanagh
