The Kerlin Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Felim Egan, from January 14 until February 14, 2000.

Egan's paintings are concerned with balancing geometrical characters against monochromatic expanses of colour in a lyrical and almost musical interaction between inventiveness on the one hand and deliberate restriction and control on the other. His characters have a playful, animated quality yet there has always been an austere elegance about his work. In recent years the paintings have become more refined and at the same time more concerned with surface texture, exhibiting an increasingly sophisticated use of colour. Landscape is a primary concern in these new paintings, promting Rudi Fuchs, director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to note in the catalogue accompanying Egan's highly acclaimed exhibition there in 1999: 'Felim Egan's abstract paintings are essentially landscapes, often seascapes too. He has the amazing gift of being able to see and paint the indescribably delicate colours of the horizon - in the sky after rain, on the water at sunset.'

Felim Egan is one Ireland's most internationally successful contemporary Irish artists. He represented Ireland in the 1980 Biennale de Paris and the Bienal de Sao Paolo in 1985. In 1984 he had exhibitions at the Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, and the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin. In 1993 he was awarded the Premier UNESCO Prize for the Arts in Paris, and he received the Gold Award at Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1997. He has collaborated with A.R. Penck and the poet Seamus Heaney. Major exhibitions of his work were held in 1995/6 at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and the Irish Museum of Modern Art and he was the first Irish artist to be shown in a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam which took place in 1999. Large-scale commissions include works for Dublin Castle and the National Gallery of Ireland. Egan is represented in numerous collections, both public and private, including those of the Irish Museum of Modern Art; Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin; AIB, Ireland; Deutsche Bank, London and the European Parliament.

For further information or visual material, please contact Kirsten Dunne.