Barrie Cooke

Norman Villa Gallery, Lower Salthill, Co Galway Daily noon-5pm (6pm during Cúirt) Apr 20-May 9

Okay, so Cúirt is a literary festival, but it’s hard to think of a more appropriate artist to feature in an exhibition during a literary festival than Barrie Cooke. Not because his work is literary or text-based; in fact, it’s intensely visual and instinctive rather than, say, illustrative. But Cooke is known for his liking for literature in general and poetry in particular, and indeed for his association with several poets, including Seamus Heaney, John Montague and the late Ted Hughes. A Butler Gallery exhibition devoted to his portraits produced an impressive tally of literary subjects, including those mentioned as well as the late John McGahern, whose portrait required an exceptional number of sittings and is included in this Norman Villa exhibition, as is that of Mary O’Malley.

Cooke brings the same sense of urgency and vitality to his portraits as he does to his more familiar subjects: the natural world, especially its watery aspects, and including its ruination, and the nude. Some of his most recent work features in the show.

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