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Liam Delaney Irish Artist Liam Delaney first came to prominence in Irish art in the 1970s with two portfolios of drawings of Dublin Pubs and Dublin Street Characters. The painstaking "pointille" work and scrupulous attention to detail in these works attracted widespread admiration and the limited edition prints proved to be an immediate sell-out. However, Delaney was only honing his skills at this stage, learning the craft and techniques of the alchemy that turns oils into breath-taking beauty on the canvas. Not surprisingly, the eye for detail led him to study Rembrandt, closely followed by Velazquez and Degas and in pursuance of that interest, he went to live in Spain while still in his early twenties. At this time, Salvador Dali had reached the peak of surrealistic expression and the young Delaney came under the influence of the flamboyant embroiderer of dreams. From this point on, he abandons representationalism to exercise an art which elicits a response at many levels. |
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For more than thirty years, he has lived between Spain and Ireland and the influence of both countries is obvious in his work. In any exhibition of his work, one can see "la luz" of Andalusia hanging beside the grey craggy mist-covered mountains of Ireland, the rough-hewn Celtic Cross beside the Moorish gateway, the wind-blown scraggy tree on an Irish heath and the exotic orange tree luxuriating in the caress of a Mediterranean sun. All of these however, although rendered with almost microscopic accuracy, are merely props to his main purpose. Such is the craftsmanship of his composition that the viewer is invited into the painting to experience the painter`s vision in three dimensions - whether it be to stand beside a dead bull, still warm from the bullring, and or to witness a fantastical scene from classical or Celtic mythology in a woodland pool. The years of perfecting his technique in Spain and in Ireland have brought to Delaney a mastery which very few achieve. His exhibitions in Ireland and abroad have confirmed his reputation as a craftman of international standard. Delaney`s paintings and drawings hang in many important collections in Ireland, America, Britain and Spain. These paintings are only a sample of a great body of work which have stood the scrutiny of the past two decades with distinction and which will go on to confirm Delaney`s reputation as an artist who speaks not just to the present but also to the future. |