Michael Kane: Recent Paintings

Rubicon Projects is delighted to present an exhibition of Recent Paintings by the acclaimed Irish artist Michael Kane. Each painting showcases Kane's mature artistic style that, over a prolific period of five decades, has fully developed into a unique, personal visual language of colour, line and form.

This body of work reveals the continued energy and passion of an artist keenly engaged with the physicality of making pictures and the pure joy of putting paint to canvas. Although originally from Wicklow, the vibrant atmosphere of Dublin where Kane has resided for most of his life, its distinct geometries and the character of its people, can be astutely felt in these exceptional paintings.

Kane pares down gesture and strips away overt descriptive detail by reducing recognizable elements. Nonetheless, the paintings handsomely convey expressive intimations of figures, buildings and cars. In some of the paintings, rough black lines robustly identify sturdy standing figures that almost fill the picture plane and command a strong presence. All of the paintings incorporate large blocks of vibrant colour that often include areas of newsprint collage, visibly revealing the layering process at work. Drips of paint slide down the pictures with daubs of impasto adding weight to the rich surface of these paintings.