2025  April 10 – May 31

The 1980s: a return to painting

The 1980s marked a huge resurgence of figurative painting following a period when the contemporary art scene had been focused on performance and conceptual art. A new, dynamic approach to figurative painting developed almost simultaneously in a number of places including New York, Berlin’s Junge Wilde, France’s Figuration Libre and the Italian Transavanguardia of Cucchi, Chia, Clemente and Paladino.

These artists’ intensity created figurative paintings from their own surroundings and experiences that appeared to be a critical examination of the tradition of painting and reflected the enormous societal and cultural shifts of the period.

Many of the artists included in this exhibition are those who left a bleak Ireland of the 1980s to integrate with the vibrant contemporary art scenes of Berlin, Paris and elsewhere.

Michael Cullen, Patrick Hall, Joe Hanly, Eithne Jordan, Michael Kane, Michael Mulcahy, Gwen O’Dowd