Project Description

About

Patrick Hall was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1935, and attended London’s Chelsea School of Art and later Central Saint Martins School of Art, where he was taught by the influential British artist Cecil Collins. In 1966, Hall moved to Spain, returning to live in Dublin in 1974. He has exhibited widely both in Ireland and internationally since the 1980s, and his work (like that of his friend Patrick Graham) has been hugely influential on generations of younger Irish artists.

“A drawing or a painting is a magnetic field of energy, it is waiting, poised, alert and breathing. A flower, a cloud. I float in a silent space: studio, garden, kitchen, waiting, marking the flow of energy. That’s all it is. There is nothing finished about my work, it’s just a step on the way. I like the quiet of my studio, its isolation. There I am at once together and alone, at home, my world. The table with drawing things on paper, a canvas on the wall which I observe all the time and touch with the brush occasionally, the painting table with its paints and brushes waiting, always ready.”

Hall’s work forms part of many significant private, institutional and public collections, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Trinity College, Dublin. He was appointed a member of Aosdána in 1982 and currently lives and works in Sligo.

“Painting is always a form of communication. We’re not painting in a vacuum. We’re painting because we’re a member of the human race and this is our deepest way of communication and of receiving response. It’s deeper than any other; it’s deeper than sex; it’s deeper than speaking; it’s deeper than thought, because it is beyond thought. It is actually physical, and it’s the physicality of the painting which connects me to other people, not just the painting, but its being. It’s a mutual acknowledgement of our common physicality and fate. but the viewer is a kind of limited word in painting, because a painting views the viewer as much as the viewer views the painting.” (Patrick Hall from an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist)

Work

Selected Exhibitions

  • 2022 Sanctuary: Nick Miller & Patrick Hall, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2015 The Trembling Veil, Belgravia Gallery, London, England
  • 2015 The Dream is Ourselves, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2013 Where there is imagination there is love, Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2013 Re/Turn, 30th Anniversary Exhibition, TBG S, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2012 Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 2009 The Quick and the Dead (with Patrick Graham, Tim Hawkesworth, Brian Maguire), Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Ireland
  • 2008 Other Men’s Flowers, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Ireland
  • 2007 Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
  • 2006 The Model, Sligo, Ireland
  • 2006 Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland
  • 2006 Lethe, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2004 Galway Arts Centre, Ireland
  • 2004 In the Time of Shaking, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
  • 2004 Stones, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2002 Clouds, Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
  • 2002 Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland
  • 2001 Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
  • 1996 Fenderesky Gallery at Queen’s, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 1995 Limerick City Art Gallery, Ireland
  • 1995 The Model, Sligo, Ireland
  • 1995 Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 1995 Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
  • 1993 Recent Acquisitions, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
  • 1991 Parable Island, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, England
  • 1991 Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles, USA
  • 1990 A New Tradition, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
  • 1990 Fenderesky Gallery at Queen’s, Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • 1989 Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
  • 1988 Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, England
  • 1988 Todd Gallery, London, England
  • 1987 Pentonville Gallery, London, England
  • 1986 Four Irish Expressionists, Northeastern University & Boston College, USA
  • 1985 Pentonville Gallery, London, England
  • 1983 Lincoln Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
  • 1980 Lincoln Gallery, Dublin, Ireland