Pictures are Oliver Sears, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, Hughie O Donoghue, artist and Naomi O’Nolan, Head of Collections and Exhibitions, The Hunt Museum, Limerick. Photograph by Keith Wiseman.
Hughie O Donoghue exhibits Time, Tide and the Memory of the House
This new exhibition of paintings by Hughie O Donoghue, Time, Tide and the Memory of the House, take as their subject matter abandoned homes, situated in the landscape of Mayo where he spent much of his youth, and which has personal significance or resonance. In this exhibition, the artist looks at buildings as places of memory, using a semi-abstract style combined with rich expressionist colours and texture.
The exhibition will feature paintings on wood panels, made in the manner of notebook pages and incorporating drone photography of the buildings together with handwritten notes gleaned from the 1911 census, about the people who lived in these houses. It will also feature a group of oil paintings developed from these panels.
In the Time and Tide series, Hugh O Donoghue revisits Inis Oirr and the wreck of the naval trawler the Plassy. Here he has produced massive and dramatic pieces connected to the Plassy and this time the works are painted on a tarpaulin.
Hughie O’Donoghue was born in 1953 in Manchester, England but his mother was born in the Gaeltacht of County Mayo in Ireland where O’Donoghue learned traditional stories and experienced the landscape of the family home. He lives and works in Erris, Co. Mayo, and London.

Artist, Hughie O’Donoghue explains the paintings at the exhibition opening. Photographed by Keith Wiseman.
Hughie O’Donoghue has been exhibiting internationally, in solo and group exhibitions, since 1982, gaining a reputation as one of the leading painters of his generation.
His work is featured in many private and public collections including the Hugh Lane, IMMA, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Ashmolean Museum, The British Museum, Den Haag Gemeentemuseum, National Gallery (UK), the IWM and Yale Center for British Art.
The exhibition is free and starts from December 7 until January 26, 2020, and open Monday to Saturday 10-5 pm and Sunday 2-5 pm. His work is available for purchase.
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