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Thursday, July 22, 2010
Dunbrody festival art competition
YET AGAIN this year’s Dunbrody festival has been a resounding success.
New Ross welcomed people from all over as huge crowds filled the streets signalling just how popular this event has become.
Over the weekend there was some great talent on display in the town, and I am not talking about Jedward here, but the finalists of the Dunbrody festival art competition, and their works of art.
The ten finalists battled it out amidst stiff competition in the preliminary rounds for the right to display their works in the Ros Tapestry room during the festival.
On Saturday last at the morning reception and opening of the exhibition, proceedings were overseen by the Minister of State for Fisheries and Forestry, and Chairman of the Dunbrody Festival Councillor, Sean Connick, while the effervescent Paddy Quinn judged the finalists’ entries.
There could only be one winner in Paddy’s eyes and that was the hugely impressive work of the rising star and artist known only as N.E.Lewshun.
The paintings of this fine, young, self-taught artist dominated the exhibition space, not only with their substantial size but with their sheer presence. Mingling with the crowd in the Ros Tapestry room, I overheard one lady remark as she studied N.E.Lewshun’s work, “I’d love to be inside his head”.
Agreeing with her I decided to speak with the artist to see what made him tick. Asking him about the influences of his unique style of art he said, “Life and its many experiences are my influence.
My style is to have no style but just to create I express whatever desires to be expressed”. Which it seems, if the pieces on display over the weekend are anything to go by, culminates as surreal, abstract, dream imagery.
It is actually hard to pin this artist’s style down as he does seem to be developing something new.
The paintings almost come to life, emerging from the canvas with their own energy.
I questioned him about this facet of his art and he remarked, “They are a collaborative expression of objects plus intermingled emotions, where painting and sculpture become entwined in a mass orgy of expression equalling to Pulpture or Neo-Modernism”.
He went onto say that he believed that the Irish art market had become stagnant with chocolate box painters and pretenders and that it was crying out for something new. New, like this wave of NeoModernism or Pulpture as he called it, that seems to be gathering momentum.
Whatever the future of the Irish art market, I believe we will be seeing much more from this young man in the future as interest builds in his work and as some of the larger galleries have already come knocking.
Tara O’Toole, the events’ organiser, for the weekend said she had been “delighted with this year’s turnout” and that they had been very “lucky with the weather, well on Saturday at least” she joked. She also said she had been impressed with the standard of art submitted to the competition and that she was a fan of the winning artists work.
So dear reader be under no illusions, art in the South East may have seen the beginning of something new this weekend.
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