Oliver Comerford

Oliver Comerford's work draws on aspects of contemporary life, film and photography and the subject is often seen through the transient lens of a car window in motion. His images include outposts, remote or distant locations, conifer woodlands and views from the edge of town. Comerford's images are at once perfectly recognizable as the world we inhabit, and at the same time charged with significance. Things appear full of possibility.

In his catalogue essay, Patrick T Murphy describes Comerford’s work as both social realism and romantic realism. Though seemingly paradoxical, Murphy outlines these terms in relation to Comerford’s work. He states that Comerford’s social realism is a social mood, a psychological and emotional state. It attempts to capture the ‘unconscious mood’ of the era, that mood being determined by the many variants that constitute contemporary life. One of the most pertinent contributors to the formation of our life today is the constant movement between destinations, the road itself becoming the subject for some of these works. Comerford’s images derive from his experience of the truck stops, bends, and airports of our itinerant life. And it is in these subjects painted in the light of the night or early morning that Comerford comes to the second role ascribed to him: romantic realist. Comerford’s romanticism is a blue note of melancholy. In that his work admits feeling, mood, it can be described as romantic.

BIOGRAPHY

Oliver Comerford (b. 1967) lives and works in Dublin.

1996-97 M.A. Chelsea College of Art and Design, London

1991 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Maine, USA

1986-90 B.A. National College of Art and Design, Dublin

1988 School of the Art Institute of Chicago

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Solo Exhibitions

2010 Oliver Comerford: Works 1996-2010, RHA Gallagher Galleries, Dublin

2009 True Romance, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin

2008 I can see your house from here, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin

2005 Night and Day, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin

2003 Out Here,Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin

2002 Get Here, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin

1999 Talk To Me, The Living Art Museum, Reykjavík, Iceland

1998 Talk To Me, Hallward Gallery, Dublin

1996 Out Of Here, Hallward Gallery, Dublin

1994 Paintings and Monotypes, Hallward Gallery, Dublin

1991 Rubicon Gallery/Bank of Ireland Exhibition Centre, Dublin

Group Exhibitions

2010 Sovereign European Art Prize, Barbican Art Gallery, London

2009 Terror and Sublime: Art in the Age of Anxiety, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (curated by Peter Murray)

2009 Portable Histories, Irish Museum of Modern Art / Wexford Arts Centre

2008 Alternative Nature, Cavan County Museum

2007 The Garden of Eden Has Vanished,Cavan County Museum

2006 Art and Idea, Comox Valley Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2006 Reality Show,Siamsa Tire Arts Centre, Trallee

2006 Seeing is Believing, Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin

2005 Tir na nOig, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

2005 After The Thaw, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork

2005 Anthology of Emerging Art from Ireland Eurojet Futures, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin

2004 Bearings, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

2003 Perspective 03, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast selected by Enrique Juncosa

2003 Affinity Archive, The Metropolitan Complex, Broadstone Studios, Dublin

2003 The National Gallery, The Return, Goethe Institute, Dublin

2002 Landscape Now…, Paton Gallery, London

2002 Eurojet Futures, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin

2002 Crawford Open 2, Crawford Municipal Gallery of Art, Cork

2002 ART2002, Kevin Kavanagh, London

2001 EV+A, Limerick

2001 2001Expanded, Limerick

2001 Adeste, Draíocht, Dublin

1999 Non-Stop Opening, Central Point Gallery, London

1999 EV+A 99, Reduced, Limerick

1999 Adhocracy, Galerie Herold, Bremen, Germany

1999 ROSL Open Exhibition, London, Edinburgh, Manchester

1998 EV+A 98, ‘Circus ZZ’ Limerick

1998 Skowhegan, David Beitzel Gallery, New York

1998 Art 98, Paton Gallery, London Contemporary Art Fair

1997 Four Artists, Paton Gallery, London

1997 Critics View, Banquet Exhibition, RHA, Dublin

1997 Open Minds, AIB Art on tour, City Hall, Waterford

1996 Victor Treacy Awards Exhibition, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny

1996 NCAD 250 Years Drawing Exhibition, Dublin

1995 The World of Art in 1995, UNESCO, Paris, France

1995,96 Boyle Arts Festival

1990,92,94-97 Academy Without Walls, RHA Banquet Exhibition, RHA, Dublin

RECENT AWARDS

2004 'Distance' ‘Per Cent For Art’ commission for Dept. of Communications

2003 ‘Vapourtrail’ ‘Per Cent For Art’ commission for Kerry County Council

2002 PS1 Fellowship, shortlisted

1998,99,2002 Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary

1998 Irish Museum of Modern Art, Artists Work Programme Residency

EV+A 98, Open Award

1996 Dublin Corporation Visual Arts Bursary

Arts Council Postgraduate Award

1995,98,99 Cultural Relations Committee Grant, Department of Foreign Affairs

COLLECTIONS

Irish Museum of Modern Art; Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane; Office of Public Works; Allied Irish Banks; Bank of Ireland; Irish Intercontinental Bank; KPMG; First National Building Society; Kerry County Council; Private Collections in Ireland, Britain, Australia and USA

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