Eugene Conway

Joyces

2023

Beginning his professional art education at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin, Eugene Conway has become one of Ireland’s leading realist landscape painters. Born in 1965, Conway moved from Dublin to Co. Kilkenny as a child; which would prove to have a huge impact on his style as an artist. Growing up in the countryside, he developed a great love and appreciation for the beauty of nature around him, which evidently informs his work. In Conway’s paintings the landscape of County Kilkenny is brought to the centre stage. His main subjects being – bridges, barns and byways, what he describes as the unsung heroes of the Irish countryside, Conway states: “A lot of the time they go unnoticed; old sheds, old walls, a wet ditch after the summer rain, or maybe the way that the light is hitting something, bringing out a lovely pattern in it. But the light is at a certain point. If you come back an hour later, everything has changed”. His paintings are quiet scenes, he does not suggest any sense of drama, or dwell on the bucolic or the picturesque, but merely highlights the unfolding of ordinary rural life. Equally, Conway uses these scenes to reflect the layers of history left by habitation and farming, which was valuable to Ireland (and other countries) for centuries. His choice of colour palate is fresh and minimalistic, with each paintings colour scheme relating directly to the weather, the seasons, and the passage of time related to the piece. Since 1998, Conway has exhibited regularly at the RHA in Dublin, and was awarded the Fergus O’Ryan Memorial Award in 2001; the ESB Keating Award, the Silver Medal for an outstanding art work in 2008; and the Abdul and Katharine Bulbulia Art in Health Award in 2010. His work is in the collections of the Haverty Trust; the OPW; the ESB; and the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin