Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART Auction Wednesday 24th March 2021

32 21 SEAN MCSWEENEY HRHA (1935-2018) Pool Áth na Beitheoige (1998) Oil on canvas, 91 x 122cm (35¾ x 48’’) Signed and inscribed on stretcher verso, Opus No.98-189 Exhibited: Taylor Galleries, Dublin, ‘ Bogland Shoreline Sligo ’, October 1998, catalogue no.49. A sense of place is very important to Sean McSweeney’s process, his compositions are focused around one small area in Sligo where he lived from the 1980s. By confining himself to this particu- lar area it allows him to get to know the landscape and its environment intimately. His work is characterised by an enduring act of trying to extract the beautiful from the more mun- dane aspects of the natural environment. On finding the bog pools in Sligo he remarked “They gave me an opening back into painting, a private space, and another world.” (True West, Interview with Brian McAvera, Irish Arts Review , Autumn 2012) While working within the tradition of Irish landscape painting, McSweeney’s art has its own unique character defined by their abstract style, the bog pools reduced to rectangular shapes surround- ed by intruding grasses and plants. The coastline is a horizontal line separating land, sky and sea. While often painting on a small scale, this present work is much larger and more impressive. With the bogland that has been cut away you are looking at framed pools, the light centre with sky and flowers reflected in it, surrounded by the dense green undergrowth. In speaking about his relationship to the landscape he remarked “in the early days, certainly it was memory… a romantic view. That all changed when I went to live in Wicklow. Living in the landscape – living through tough winters was a great challenge… It hardened things up. I got a lot more structure in my work.” (True West, Interview with Brian McAvera, Irish Arts Review , Autumn 2012) This is reflected in how he breaks down the canvas first with colour, using rigorous brushwork often aided by a palette knife. Often, he paints the entire canvas one colour and then introduces another into it to see what might emerge, an organic process that captures the natural rhythms of the landscape and changing light. Niamh Corcoran, 2021 € 7,000 - 10,000 CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOGRAPHS AND BIDDING