Eamon Colman
Before the dark gets stronger than the light
An exhibition of paintings

Venue: RUA Red, South Dublin Arts Centre, Tallaght, Dublin 24

Before the dark gets stronger than the light is a new body of paintings by Eamon Colman. Rendered in acrylic and oil paint on Somerset paper, these large-scale paintings portray abstracted, experienced landscapes.
Influenced by the writings of German Philosopher Immanuel Kant, Colman explores the question that surround the "depictions of landscape" - the real or the actual. Questions about mood, does the mood of the artist affect how the landscape is addressed? Does the landscape have a mood? Deemed as "unmistakably a colourist" by Aidan Dunne, for Colman the introduction of colour as an indicator of mood allows the viewer to interpret this for themselves. The artist is not the end controller but part of the visual debate.

The title alludes to the transitory / ephemeral nature between the physical and the conceptual landscape as interpreted by Colman. The nature of his experiences are then articulated through his personal lexicon of mark making and use of colour. Depicting both the wide and the minutiae within a landscape, Colman visually hints at an image of a swirling pool / bird flight, beside a crevice for example in "In Winter white the Willy Wagtail dipped and sang"

Eamon Colman was born in 1957 in Dublin. He is one of Ireland's foremost painters and a member of Aosdana. Since 1980 Eamon has had 30 solo exhibitions in Ireland and abroad including a mid term retrospective at The RHA Gallagher Gallery 1997, and at The Cecille R. Hunt Museum, Webster University, St Louis, USA in 2008. He has won many awards including a one year travel award by The Calcutta Artists Union in 1989 and was the first Irish artist to win a Full Fellowship to The Vermont Studio Center (2002), a Fellow of The Ballinglen Arts Foundation and was awarded a CCAT Interreg Major Award to tour an extensive exhibition in Wales in 2005. He won first prize in painting in EV+A 1989 and in Eigse 2001. Colman was Chairman of the Artists' Association of Ireland 1993 - 1995 and President of the European Council of Artists' 1995 - 2000. He is represented in all the main Public Collections in Ireland and in Private Collections internationally. A Gandon Edition- Eamon Colman, Artists Profile no 25 was published in 2006 and in 2010 he is profiled in Robert O'Byrnes's Dictionary of Living Irish Artists, Plurabelle Publishing.

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He is represented by Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin www.hillsborofineart.com Telephone: +353.1.8788242

To contact Alternative Entertainments please email b.altents@gmail.com or phone + 353 1 4520611 for images or any further information.

The exhibition will open to the public on Saturday 6th November 3pm, and will continue until 4th December 2010.

"Silent and buoyant the Screech Owl lifts and fly's Angel like to the north" acrylic & oil on Somerset 410 gram paper 56 " x 56 "