Adam's Important Irish Art September 26th 2018

57 Important Irish Art | 26th September 2018 48 DONALD TESKEY RHA (B.1956) Street Scene with Three Figures Oil on canvas, 45 x 53cm (17¾ x 20¾’’) Signed and dated 1998 Donald Teskey’s landscape paintings always maintain a strong sense of place, whether evoking specific sites or responding to the unexpected effects of the environment. The location of this present work is not identified but Teskey grounds the scene by placing the three figures at the painting’s center, a focal point which draws the eye into the landscape, our attention captured by their brightly coloured coats. The figures with their backs to us, appear to be at a standstill amongst the windswept wintery city streets, framed by lamp posts on either side, we follow their gaze to the buildings on the other side of the street. Although he uses only a few strokes to delineate the bodies of the figures, we still get a sense that the three are in communion with each other, the two in yellow and green turning their heads to listen to the taller figure in black. He balances the light and dark contrasts with ease in the painting, the dark swirling colours of the foreground opening up to a lighter space beyond. A considerable part of Teskey’s work focuses on urban landscapes, a traditional genre of painting but handled in such a man- ner that enlivens the scene and results in intensely powerful images. Teskey uses palette knives to spread thick swaths of paint across the canvas, suggesting the elastic quality of his material, which is malleable and manipulated in his hands. This gestural abstraction, goes beyond the specifics of time and place, texture takes over and the medium becomes of equal importance to the subject matter itself. Such images dramatize elemental change, the shifting light and the unexpected effects of nature within which these three figures find themselves. Niamh Corcoran, August 2018 € 6,000 - 8,000