Vertical lines replaced the expected horizontal lines in a series of new paintings by painter Donald Teskey at the Rubicon Gallery in Dublin.
"It's going to be a surprise for people to see him painting the Connecticut landscape," said Josephine Kelliher of the Rubicon. Teskey, she explained, has become better known in recent years as a painter of "horizontal seascapes and shorelines", compared to the "vertical lines of the canopy of trees" he painted in the United States last year, which are currently on view in this show, From Bethany to Beacon Falls.
"The strength (of Teskey's paintings) is the underlying draughtsmanship, which is very strong," said friend and fellow painter Mick O'Dea. "It looks almost casual but it's very tightly structured," he said, noting that "the explosion of colour" and "the apparent ease and even recklessness that the colour is applied with" gave the work "fantastic strength".
"I relate to the melancholy in the work," said visiting Canadian artist Robert Bordo.
"I wanted to be there in winter when the light allows you to see right through the trees," said Teskey, who was artist-in-residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany in Connecticut for two months last year.
He went at that time, he explained, because "I wanted to avoid the greenery of the summer and the autumn."
Clare-based painter Sam Walsh, who had his own opening at the Hillsboro Fine Art Gallery in Dublin the following night, was also at the show. "We are not static, we don't follow a formula," he said. "We are asking ourselves questions all the time."
Others at the show included musicians Cáit O'Riordan and Dave Clarke, who are off on a US tour soon with their band Prenup; Seán and Rosemarie Mulcahy; and publisher Michael O'Brien.
The Donald Teskey exhibition From Bethany to Beacon Falls continues at the Rubicon Gallery, 10 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, until Fri, Aug 24