Stephen McKenna: Perspectives of Europe 1980 – 2014

Former Turner Prize nominee Stephen McKenna will present his latest exhibition, Perspectives of Europe 1980 – 2014, at Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane from July to October 2015. The exhibition features works painted throughout McKenna’s career including paintings of landscapes, cityscapes and trees.

Perspectives of Europe 1980 – 2014 charts McKenna’s responses to living and working in a number of European cities. The resulting paintings made from 1980 to the present, reflect not only the cities, the landscapes, the people and the artefacts of the various countries, but also their history and the contents of their museums. McKenna has lived in Ireland since 1973 and is described as having a “classical approach to still life”, using timeless varieties of landscape, still life and interiors to comment on present issues.

Visitors to the gallery can expect to see the paintings organised thematically into four separate galleries with the first gallery showcasing a group of paintings of pillars, based either on concepts from the history of architecture or on the observation of specific examples. A second gallery shows cities and ports of southern Europe, in various lights at different times of the day and night. The third gallery shows aspects of northern cities, rivers and parks, with an emphasis on their historical situation and condition. The final gallery is devoted to paintings of trees and leaves, of widely differing scales.

Director, Barbara Dawson, said: “His is a keen and original vision which is informed by his metier – the millennia of Western mythology and its history. Alongside his paintings of cities, in this exhibition there is a focus on the artist’s paintings of trees. McKenna’s study of trees is unique. He delights in opening his eyes and our eyes to the poetry contained in their painterly representation – ordinary and extraordinary in their compositional structures. Swathed in precise and detailed foliage they make one aware of the workings of the classical spirit in its environment and it is this experience of the art work that makes his work exceptional.”

A partnership with Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where the exhibition is on view from 6 February to 7 June the exhibition features both national and international loans and will be open to the public until 4 October 2015.

A catalogue is available detailing all works in both exhibitions, published jointly by the two institutions, with an essay by the distinguished art historian and former Tate curator, David Fraser Jenkins.