On the Town:There are hidden stories behind the paintings of stark nudes and cut flowers, said Belfast-based artist Michael Smyth. "Everything is interlinked.
There is a story behind everything," he said at the opening of his show, Still Changing, at Gormleys Fine Art gallery in Dublin last Thursday.
"Those are all prostitutes, who work in Belfast on a street called Joy Street," he said, pointing to his paintings and sculptures, which are on view in the show. "I like to paint them because you get an awkwardness from them. You don't get a professional pose. [Posing] is alien to them. I like to paint them because they are real working women. For me these are the type of girls who are not judgmental in any way and yet they are judged . . . The agreement was that I wouldn't show their faces."
And, he adds, that "would have taken away the mystery". His paintings of flowers "are all connected" too.
One, of spiky red flowers, was influenced by one of the women's hair, explained his wife, Audrey Smyth, who is also an artist. "Michael has an empathy with his subjects and that comes through," she said.
"He's got real personality into his figurative paintings," said Paddy Campbell, the former businessman and now full-time sculptor. "I love the colours and the fact that he's mixed figurative with the still life. It's very unusual."
"It's very moving," said Leo Higgins, sculptor and owner of the Cast Bronze Factory.
One of his own pieces, a large bronze sculpture entitled Winter Trees, will be on view in the public space at the top of Grafton Street from the end of this month.
Others at the opening were Gordon and Anne Patterson from Belfast, executive producer of The Late Late Show Larry Masterson and his wife Hazel, and friends Róisín Ní Mhórdha, Vivienne Nyhan and Portia White.
Still Changing will run at Gormleys Fine Art at 24 South Frederick Street, Dublin 2, until Thurs, Jan 18