WHYTES IMPORTANT IRISH ART 30 MAY 2016

IMPORTANT IRISH ART · 30 MAY 2016 AT 6PM

Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956)

OCEAN FREQUENCY DIPTYCH, 2012

oil on canvas

signed lower right

72 x 128in. (182.88 x 325.12cm)

Provenance:

Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin;

Private collection

Exhibited:

‘Ocean Frequency, Donald Teskey’, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 7 March to 18 April 2013 (illustrated in cata-

logue p.14-15)

A copy of the Ocean Frequency exhibition catalogue accompanies this lot.

The present work is inspired by the coastline of the West of Ireland at the junction where the sea meets the

land. In his introduction to the Oliver Sears exhibition catalogue Theo Dorgan aptly describes the subject

thus, ‘It is true that the artist is revisiting a terrain with which he is familiar, a topography he has painted

before, and the resulting works may strike many as familiar. The sea falls on the land with a great weight, and

obdurate rock holds out against the incoming sea with a great endurance.

There is drama in this primary confrontation, a strong and sometimes exhilirating sense of contention, of

irrresistable force rolling in a long thunder against immovable object. There is the shock of the impact, that

collision of forces, safely frozen before our eyes.’

Born in Limerick, Donald Teskey studied at the Limerick College of Art and Design, before moving to Dub-

lin where he has lived for over twenty years, painting and teaching at NCAD. Teskey’s canvases are carefully

mapped out in terms of tone and chiaroscuro, creating a pervasive sense of mystery to his compositions using

vigorously applied impasto, which the artist applies with plasterers’ trowels, scraping back, repainting, and

sculpting his paint in a rich, thick layer, covering all.

The present work, Ocean Frequency Diptych, was the largest and most important work shown at the Oliver

Sears 2012 exhibition.

€40,000-€60,000 (£31,500-£47,240 approx.)