Opening by former Greenpeace Activist Senator Grace O’ Sullivan 
Wednesday 30th May 2018

Landscape Art evolved as a genre in its own right during the Renaissance whilst marine landscape arrived much later followed by what may be regarded today as seascape painting.

The Sea and its movement and colour depending on the weather at any time has inspired many of the worlds most famous artists. Often classed as marine or maritime art the latter nearly always features a boat in its travails in stormy weather or becalmed for boatmen fishing near harbours.

It’s the first of these two magnificent sights that Eoin de Leastar provides us ‘landlubbers’ with today. Bringing technical though fluid perfection to those merciless oceanic waves sometimes alongside vicious rocks holding out nevertheless safe harbour.

Not necessarily ‘big ships’ like those of William Turners ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ or royal yachts De Leastar seems to pit the ‘common sailor’ against ‘the terrible oceans claw’ or leaves him out altogether.

Every wave seems to rise like Icarus and seem poised to pound and crash upon the pier or shore. Eoin seems to avoid the melodrama of man against the sea as in Rembrandt’s ‘The Storm on the Sea of Galilee’ but favours the waves of Gustave Courbet.

“These works relate to recent stormy weather around the coasts of Waterford, Connemara and especially at the artist retreat of Cill Rialaig, in Kerry. A recent trip around the Skelligs left a lasting impression on me of the seas’ overwhelming power and cantankerous nature. I have never gone onto the island rock of Skellig Michael as I feet ill at ease approaching such a spiritual place.

But our relationship with the sea is an elemental part of our nature and evocative paintings of the sea for its own sake were a significant part of the Romantic Movement. For painters of the figure, a basic understanding of anatomy is essential, and I have begun to learn that a study of the anatomy of the wave is also vital for sea painting. I have been much influenced in this by the works of the Great American marine painter Frederick Waugh.”

Show continues ’til June 12th 2018