ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25 MARCH 2026

14 4 JOHN SHINNORS (B.1950) Child Scarecrow / Falling Kite Oil on canvas laid on board 52 x 65cm (20½ x 25½”) Signed, bottom right € 10,000 - 15,000 John Shinnors’ matter-of-fact directness is an important part of his appeal to viewers. Like the illusionist Derren Brown, who tells his audience that there’s nothing paranormal about what he does before going on to astound them with apparent magic, Shinnors marshals the most ordinary things from everyday life, such as kites and scarecrows, lighthouses and zebra crossings, cows and cats, magpies and swallows, even washing on a clothes line, and transforms them so that it’s as if we’ve never seen them before. The epiphany that trans- formed his painting happened by chance: a glimpse of mackerel laid out on a polished metal tray at the fishmongers one morning. That glimpse provided him with another way of seeing. Some years later, out of the rocks at George’s Head, Kilkee he had another inspiring glimpse: a distant white figure moving over black rock and, suddenly, a flash of yellow in the sky high above: a kite, attached by an invisible line to the child below. Scarecrows are more ambiguous, with an ominous, slightly eerie quality, and Shinnors likes ambiguity. He likes the familiar made strange, the difference between seeing and not seeing, what we allow ourselves to see, and also the optics of mystery, intimations of what is ignored or forbidden or troubling. This latter imbues his work, as here, with a frisson of spookiness, an incalculable dimension. He is, famously, a virtuoso of varieties of blacks and whites, enhanced by simmering accents of earth hues, reds, yellows and chilly blues. Limerick’s best-known artist, Shinnors was born in 1950, studied at LSAD under the guidance of the painter Jack Donovan and travelled for a time in England, where among other things he tried busking and other musical forays. Back in Ireland, he established himself as a painter in Limerick in a city-centre studio. He did not go into teaching himself, but has been a real benefactor to younger artists and his home town. Excursions apart (mostly to the coast), Limerick remained his base. There has always been a magic-realist touch to his vision. His work is included in numerous private and public collections. Aidan Dunne, March 2026