‘Flotilla of concepts’ at County Buildings display by John Noel

THE ARTS DEPARTMENT of Wexford County Council in partnership with Wexford Arts Centre is hosting an exhibition of selected works from 1993 to 2016 by the Wexford abstract artist John Noel Smith at County Buildings in Carricklawn.

The writer and curator Catherine Marshall said: ‘Smith’s ability to constantly develop his repertoire purely within the language of painting marks him out among abstract painters, not just in Ireland but in a wider context.’

The exhibition is a poignant homecoming of sorts for Smith whose roots are in County Wexford where he now lives having spent 22 years pursuing a thriving career as a professional artist in Berlin from 1980 to 2002.

His great-grandfather farmed at Smith’s Cross in Ballycanew while his grandfather was the County Station Master from 1908 to 1915. His father moved to Dublin in the 1930s where John Noel grew up in Malahide.

John Noel studied at St Peter’s College from 1965, completing his secondary education there in 1970 before attending Dun Laoghaire School of Art from 1972 to 1976.

He won the ‘Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst’ scholarship, which brought him to Germany to study at the Universitat der Kunste Berlin. He returned home to Ireland in 2002 where he now lives and works in North Wexford. He is represented by Hillsboro Fine Art Dublin, the Fenderesky Gallery in Belfast and Galerie Stefan Bartsch in Munich.

Described as an artist who has come up against the limits of painting itself, John Noel’s practice has developed over an career spanning three decades. His scraped, washed and constructed paintings built up in layers suggests the use of precious materials in medieval manuscripts.

His work cannot be easily categorised. Smith said: ‘ There is no one dominant idea behind my work; rather it is a flotilla of concepts which combine to creat the core idea.’

The art critic Theo Dorgan has written of his work: ‘Every mark on the canvas speaks ardently of the human hand, heart and mind that made this thing you are looking at, while also managing to exist in a place or time beyond our own.’

The exhibition will run until Friday, December 2. The opening hours are 9.30 am to 5pm from Monday to Friday.