Eugene Conway

May 10th ~ May 25th '07

Eugene and I both studied Fine Art in NCAD from 1987 to 1991, and we were both a few years older than the other students at the time, a common factor that helped begin an enduring friendship. Foundation year was all about
projects to broaden the perceptions and to suggest multiple possibilities of the concept and making of art. It was a challenging time to say the least. We often felt there were pressures on us different from those in the year who were younger, and fresh from school. In a much bleaker Ireland economically than today's relatively golden period for Irish artists there were moments of doubt when we wondered what we were doing there at all.
One evening back in Eugene's flat, another friend and I noticed a large framed picture leaning face to the wall. Eugene, with his characteristic modesty, reluctantly showed it to us. It was a superb landscape - a great expansive scene beautifully painted in all its detail. We were amazed. Here was a 'real' artist, a real painter, not a student like us. The picture proved this.
It transpired that this is what he had always done.

While still working as a qualified carpenter, Eugene spent every spare hour out in the landscape and back in the studio - and in all weathers. He painted the landscape that he knew so well, around his native Kilkenny. He had that magical way of painting a dark, damp wet scene, conditions that would have driven most indoors but which he made hugely evocative paintings of, images of a landscape that was in his blood. Using predominantly cold greens, blues and blacks, Eugene created intense and vivid images of a
beautiful and sometimes bleak countryside.
A very serious motorbike accident shortly after leaving college might have robbed us of Eugene and these paintings. Fortunately, he made a full recovery and has had many shows since, and the work is better than ever. Eugene is a picture maker. Every painting is a natural considered scene. He understands colour - the effect of sun, reflections in water, shadows in snow, leaves on trees, a thousand shades of green, the bright blue skies of the Irish landscape at its most beautiful. Eugene has a great eye for composition, and for making an interesting image from the often less obvious - a close up of a bend in a stream, a corner of a field, a strip of road, a group of trees. His colours are true, using the absolute shades that are the abiding hues of the Irish landscape. It is this landscape and these colours which Eugene knows better than most, born and reared in it, that have shaped his artistic vision.
James Hanley RHA

Eugene Conway

Born: Dublin 1965
Education: Graduated NCAD Dublin, Batchelor of Fine Arts (Painting), Hons.

Solo Exhibitions

The Molesworth Gallery - 2007, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2001

Selected Group Exhibitions

RHA Annual Exhibition - 2006, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1994, 1993, 1992, 1991
RHA Banquet Show - 2006
Wexford Opera Festival - 2006
Arts Council of Ireland Exhibition, Dublin - 1998
Ashling Gallery, Hingham, MA, USA - 1996-1998
NCAD, Dublin - 1991

Awards

RHA Fergus O”Ryan Memorial Exhibition - 2001

Selected Collections

Haverty Trust; OPW; ESB; Four Seasons Hotel, Dublin

Commissions

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny - 2004