Recent paintings, Cill Rialaig exhibition dates, OUT:St. Leonards, new etchings

I've split this pair up for a while as the portrait of Yejin went firstly down to London for judging for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual show, and now is off to the RHA preselection in Dublin. For a painting of this size I have to channel Dick Whittington, with a shoulder sling made of a bedsheet around the well-wrapped canvas. Luke at St. Barnabas framed it beautifully in a teak-stained and maple-waxed tray frame.

Exhibition at Cill Rialaig, 8th-26th August

Otherwise, I'm starting to prepare for my exhibition at Cill Rialaig Arts Centre in County Kerry, Ireland, which will run from 8th-26th August, with an opening event on the afternoon of Sunday 9th weekend. I'm also planning a printmaking demo/artist talk towards the end of the exhibition period - you'll get all the details in an email soon. A first draft of the poster is above! Expect darkness and light. If you're in Ireland, or you fancy a trip to one of it's most beautiful regions, you should come along and I'll show you around. More details to follow - I'm pretty excited to have the freedom to exhibit

New Etchings

I've been working on some big new plates. In contrast to paintings, "big" for an etching means 60cm+, beyond that many parts of the process can get tricky as you come up against limitations in equipment size e.g. the hot-plate for melting grounds, aquatint box and the bed of the printing press. The price of copper plate is another issue. Lucien Freud, for example, not one to hold back, barely went above this size. The latest is "Someone's firebombed McQuaid's Pharmacy", which will feature in my upcoming exhibition of the same name.

OUT: St. Leonards

I was lucky enough to take part in a really cool contemporary printmaking exhibition at Unit 2 gallery in St. Leonards. It was put together by Matty Emery, a brilliant printmaker and champion of "expanded" print - the premise of this show was simple - no frames, taking print out of it's traditional, increasingly costly, rectangular, behind-glass constraints. Here are a few pictures from the show, including Matty with a spectacular intaglio print of his. Follow @mattyemery to see what he's up to - you'll find him organising boundary-pushing exhibitions while also editioning for the likes of Anthony Gormley in the day job. Also pictured is a sculptural work by Brian Hodgson (www.briandhodgsoneditions.com) who is another one doing very interesting stuff in printmaking, and and installation, "Nth degree burn" by Freya McDonald (https://www.instagram.com/freya_mcd_art/).

As usual, please feel free to cirulate and encourage any art-interested friends to subscribe at https://www.niallmaccrannpainting.com/subscribe. More soon. Peace.