Due to popular demand Painted City has returned to Greyfriars Municipal Gallery.
Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm – Admission FREE
The exhibition, featuring views of Waterford, is now also being offered as an outreach option for City and County schools – contact Ciara Foley at 051 849983.
“Painted City – Paintings and Views of Waterford” is an exhibition of views of Waterford spanning nearly 300 years. As it is about our City, many of the pieces are by people connected with Waterford such as Con Fay, Ciaran Lynch, Joe Hunt, John O’Regan Michael O’Connell, Robert Burke and Thomas Sautelle Roberts. Curator Ben Hennessy (a native of the City) says of it “I have long had a fascination with what our City was like in the years past – I have often imagined myself walking the streets of years ago… “In selecting the paintings for this exhibition I was not only conscious of what the City looked like but I was also very much imagining myself standing where the artists would have stood in making the work”. Indeed the opening piece, specially commissioned for the exhibition View of Waterford 2014 was created where the artist sat in amongst the spaghetti-like tangle of railway lines in the shadow of Mount Misery on the North quays. Ben himself was with the artist when he chose the place from which to paint from. One of the more spectacular pieces in the exhibition is by former Art lecturer in W.I.T. Joe Hunt who’s Portlairge 1988 has been the topic of much debate in regards to where the artist took his view. The most popular theory was that he was on the roof top of the Tower Hotel. Whether it is a conversation about a particular view or medium used, many of the pieces have their own individual stories living on the canvas. When you take a tour around the Gallery you will come across places that surprise you, or leave you confused or, in some cases, make you appreciate even more the wonder that is Waterford, no matter what year it represents.
Waterford City’s Arts Office would like to thank Ben Hennessy, Ciaran Lynch and Martin Fahy for their work on this exhibition. It would also like to thank Waterford VEC for the loan of ‘Portlairge 1988’ by Joe Hunt.