Now Came Still Evening On

John Coyle is a fine painter, with the skill and sensitivity that comes from a lifetime in the tradition. Now in his early 80’s he creates works that are luminous in atmosphere and emotion; he makes works which push painting into the realms beyond the subject. They seem to hold both familiarity and structure with distance and abstraction. His focus is on the things that are in front of us all, he paints urban scenes, snapshots, views from his studio, informal portraits, and still-lifes's rendering the everyday things of life. And as with anything which reads as complete and effortless, there is a deception to the easiness and skill behind the work. They have energy, depth and simplicity that come from the regular practice and the hand of a master painter. With time they reveal a rigour in their form, structure and use of colour. These paintings are works to spend time with, to be read and re-read, as epic poems of the ordinary.

John Coyle's most recent solo exhibition was with The Kevin Kavanagh Gallery. He has frequently shown in group exhibitions, and particularly at the Royal Irish Academy. He was elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1979 and a full Member in 1982. He was educated at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin and the Glasgow School of Art. He also studied in Paris, Florence and Madrid. He was head of the Art Department and subsequently Vice-Principal of Blackrock College in Dublin and has lectured in the National College of Art & Design and Dun Laoghaire School of Art.

Building on his approach to his last solo exhibition Into The Woods at the RHA in 2015. Gary Coyle will create, in The Docks largest gallery, a spectacular immersive environment of multi-layered drawings. For this exhibition he has made numerous new works which will be hung in the salon style and are made in respect to classical references, part homage to kitsch, part nod to the Baroque.

The works join the art historical with contemporary cultural references. Framing, and the function of the frame and the nature of the gallery itself is questioned within the world of imagery he creates. His large-scale charcoal drawings explore a variety of subject matter & themes. Including the high-gothic, they make reference to the appropriation of imagery from internet memes, such as cats, portrayed by him as noble, uncanny and sinister. Many of the works incorporate elaborate and ornate hand drawn frames though given a contemporary reworking in charcoal. The layers of so much imagery are at once overwhelming, much like our bombarded and overloaded experiences in media culture, and obscuring. He creates an environment which is magical, a threshold between a real world and the world of ritual and transition. These drawings are hung over a massive installation of a digital drawing of The Dark Wood. It was in these woods at Coole Park, near Gort in County Galway. which Yeats took Lady Gregory looking for faeries. Coole Park being the centre of the Irish Literary Revival, with regular visitors such as WB Yeats, GB Shaw, and Lady Gregory. Gary Coyle creates this environment experience in which the view is a performer with an intensely layered environment where establishing a viewpoint is uncertain, tricky and compelling.

Gary Coyle trained as a sculptor at the National College of Art and Design and the Royal College of Art London. He was elected a member of the RHA in 2007 & Aosdana in 2009. His work embraces various media, including Drawing, Photography, & Spoken word/ Performance. He has exhibited widely in Ireland & internationally.

John and Garry Colye are the first father and son members of the RHA since John and Jack Yeats.