CONSTELLATIONS BY MICHAEL MCSWINEY
Through ‘Constellations’ McSwiney extends this language to its most Tapies-like frontier, presenting highly textured, slightly disorientating monochromes, where his trade-mark horizontal ‘horizon line’ is skewed or absent. In one particular work the artist’s processes and the corrosions of time, over a 25 year period, have produced an accidental tableaux of continents; in another signature piece, titled ‘Constellations’, coins are embedded in the dark, lustrous surface of the painting. These works complement a generous number of others more familiar to McSwiney’s followers, with all their attendant atmospherics and blazing sledges of colour.
McSwiney has presented solo exhibitions at Garter Lane Arts Centre Waterford, Linenhall Art Centre Mayo, Sirius Art Centre Cork, Droichead Art Centre Drogheda, Source Art Centre Tipperary, Kenmare Buttermarket Kerry and Draoicht Art Centre Dublin. He is represented in collections in Ireland, Europe and internationally.