Emerging local artist Deborah Reidy (28) from New Ross has been chosen from over 2,300 applicants to exhibit one of her portraits at the 184th Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) Exhibition in Dublin.
The RHA open submission process provides almost half of the exhibition with the rest made up of RHA members and invited guests. Deborah was aware of the submission process for a few years and this year was determined to put in an application. “It’s a very prestigious exhibition and a great opportunity to exhibit beside some of Ireland's top artists. To have my work hanging next to Ian Cumberland’s work and in the same room as other artists I admire, like Colin Davidson and the RHA members, is an absolute honour. It inspires me to keep going and work even harder at it.”
The painting, "Portrait of sculptor Mark Maher", is a pastel painting where the pigment is applied directly to paper with soft and hard pastels. Speaking about the provenance of the work, Deborah said, “I was inspired to go back to portrait painting after a recent visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London. My graduate exhibition in WIT was a series of self-portraits portraying the seven deadly sins. Since then I went through a period of abstract work and painting skulls but I've always been very interested in portraiture. I used soft pastel overlaid with hard pastel for detail. I'm interested in giving a sense of the subject’s character and personality through m
y paintings.”
Deborah is currently working towards being a full time professional artist and is starting a series of portraits of characters for exhibition in the future as well as working on portrait commissions. She studied Art at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) and she has also been involved in the New Ross Tapestry Project.
According to Deborah, “My time at WIT helped me to develop the discipline to work on art every day. I enjoyed first year especially where you spend a lot of time on the basics of drawing, life drawing and colour theory. It’s a great course for trying out different disciplines and developing and following through with concepts for projects. WIT gave me a good foundation to start my art career.”
The RHA Exhibition will be held at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin from May 27th to August 9th 2014.
For more info about the exhibition, visit [url=http://www.rhagallery.ie/visit/annual-exhibition/]http://www.rhagallery.ie/visit/annual-exhibition/[/url]
To view the portfolio of Deborah’s work, visit [url=http://debreidy.wix.com/artist]http://debreidy.wix.com/artist[/url]
For more information on the BA (Hons) in Visual Art click here.
"Portrait of Sculptor Mark Maher", the painting by local artist Deborah Reidy which has been chosen from over 2,300 paintings to be exhibited at the 184th Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) Exhibition in Dublin
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