Gerry O’Mahony

Contact Studios member since 1998

About Gerry

Gerry O’Mahony is a graduate of LSAD Limerick. He has lived in Ireland, Israel and Malawi. On returning from Africa he became a member of one of Limerick’s first artist collectives (All + 10 sorts), and exhibited at length with the group. His first solo exhibition was in the Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, and subsequently he has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally. His work is in private and public collections in Ireland and abroad, including Limerick County and City Councils, Government buildings, Dublin, and Berlemonte Buildings, Brussels. His most recent show was at Draiocht, Blanchardstown Art Centre, and Dublin in 2015. O’Mahony lives in County Clare and has been a member of Contact Studios, Limerick, since 2005.
Current Exhibition
GERRY O'MAHONY
"Changing Shadows"
The Courthouse Gallery,
Ennistymon,
Co. Clare
Fri 6th May ~
Thur 2th June '16

Work

Originally trained as a sculptor, his output for many years has been in painting. Working in mixed media, his pieces combine watercolour, gold leaf, and acrylic, using a layering process to give an impression of marks floating on and within the surface. He employs a vocabulary of symbols and characters in work which distorts the line between painting and drawing. The work though not allegorical, flows between the visible and the concealed, the effervescent and the obscure. He works in series, often on a number of paintings at a time, shifting back and forth between the various pieces to create a body of work. Some pieces explore the power of words to produce a positive or negative response in the listener. Other paintings examine the nature of change as discussed in the allegory of Plato’s Cave, which explores the idea that it is easier to live in the shadows than to move out beyond a self-imposed comfort zone.
In my work I seek to confront the instinctive realities of human and cultural challenges in a world which fluctuates between the familiar and the unknown, an odyssey that shows humanity’s struggle to find ways to inhabit the planet in a peaceful, productive and co-operative way. From Plato’s Simile of the Cave, to Job in the belly of a fish, the paintings assert that the basis of the problem lies in the individual’s personal struggle to integrate the physical and the spiritual realities of human existence.


Employing a vocabulary of symbols and characters in the work often distorts the line between painting and drawing, and sometimes can provoke an emotional and instinctive response from the viewer. These works though not allegorical, undulate between the perceptible and the concealed, the vibrant and the hazy, and implicit is a struggle between memory and imagination.

My work shows the influence of the patterned, symbolic, colourful images of ancient and primitive art where the creations are a celebration of life that is simple and uncontrived- an art without “art”. It is a response to all of these influences and yet none of them – a separate entity created from the inter-mingling of both major and minor influences. The work is an expression of a vision of the world, an invitation to observers to share that vision and create their own. It is both a statement and a challenge.

“This exhibition, Emerging Light, is part of an odyssey for Gerry O’Mahony. An odyssey that shows humanity’s struggle to find ways to inhabit the planet in a peaceful, productive and co-operative way. From Plato’s Simile of the Cave to Job in the belly of the whale, the paintings assert that the basis of the problem lies in the individual’s personal struggle to integrate the physical and the spiritual realities of human existence.
The paintings chart the journey from war and pain through the perils of life to the safe harbour of home. A voyage from despair to hope. In some of the work the process is characterised...”
~ Trish Rainsford


“The drawings of Gerry O’Mahony with their detail of fine script show a mind allied to intuition.”
~ Desmond Mac Avock
Irish Times


“…The flow of line is soft and sensuous yet controlled and not allowed to meander from the original idea of creating a gap-like expanse which the viewer wanders over.“
~ Samuel Walsh


“…Gerry O’Mahony’s work is modest- and I use the word in its most positive sense. Modest in that it seeks nothing more than to express the life view of the artist through the work itself in a manner which is peaceful and spiritual. "…The work is also an exploration, and carries with it still much of the joy an artist feels when resolution is drawing closer. It is, whether intentional or not, a call to re-examine some of our more arrogant assumptions of how really good painters work- and why. It is a call to take some time out - rather like a quiet walk on a Sunday afternoon."
~ Emer Mc Namara
former director Belltable Arts Centre


"…his preoccupation with words and images has changed and grown over the years. He seems less concerned with the actuality of words in his work. This shift signals perhaps an inward movement, a movement toward silence. We need to care for our, “keepers of silence” they are the ones who feel the changes in society. They remind us of the power and magic of the image and of the word. They help us to understand, to shape, a form to the unutterable. They remind us that we are, willing to explore silence - the empty spaces, the areas between words, between ‘the said’ and the as yet unknown. Gerry continues to explore through his work the possibility of giving form to some kind of spiritual experience that waits, where words wait -in silence for us to find them. These paintings are a bridge in experiences beyond the self but they are also authentic evocations fo the human being in his time and his place."
~ Jo Slade


"From earliest times human beings have had to turn to visual symbols to find a way to express the often literally unutterable truths of life. Frustrated with words people have sought other ways to show the truth. Explain the world. Touch the heart. It is in this tradition of attempting to express “The Nature of Reality,” that Gerry O’Mahony’s work has evolved. The motive power driving O’Mahony’s work is his vision of the world. Unwilling to take the easy road of cynicism, and as a direct challenge of the prejudice, division and hatred, that is present day life, he identifies in humanity the potential for unity. He sees a nascent ability to work together and create a body of humanity that is harmonic."
~ Patricia Rainsford



Interview Video