Eamon Colman (born 1957) is an Irish painter. He is a member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association of artists. It was created in 1981 on the initiative of a group of writers with support from the country's Arts Council. Membership, which is by invitation from current member ...

, an elite Irish association of artists.

Early life

Colman was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

in 1957. His father, Seámus Ó Colmáin, was an artist. Eamon Colman attended a Christian Brothers school; then Dalton School, a Jewish school in

Rathmines Rathmines () is an affluent inner suburb on the Southside of Dublin in Ireland. It lies three kilometres south of the city centre. It begins at the southern side of the Grand Canal and stretches along the Rathmines Road as far as Rathgar to ...

; then a Protestant school. He worked as a labourer and studied

landscape gardening Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...

Career

Colman studied at Trinity Arts Workshop and the

National College of Art and Design The National College of Art and Design (NCAD) is Ireland's oldest art institution, offering the largest range of art and design degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the country. Originating as a drawing school in 1746, many of th ...

(NCAD, Dublin), beginning his professional career in 1979. He had a major retrospective exhibition at the

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the RIA, the academy retained the word "Royal" after most of Ireland became in ...

in 1997 and was elected to

in 2007. He was a member of the Toscaireacht, Aosdána's ten-member ruling committee, in 2020 and 2021. His paintings often depict the mountains of County Kilkenny and the nearby rivers, the

Suir The River Suir ( ; ga, an tSiúr or ''Abhainn na Siúire'' ) is a river in Ireland that flows into the Atlantic Ocean through Waterford after a distance of . The catchment area of the Suir is 3,610 km2.

and Barrow. According to critic

Aidan Dunne Aidan Dunne is a visual arts critic and contributor to ''The Irish Times.'' Education Dunne is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Career Aidan Dunne has written regularly for ''The Irish Times'' for decades. He ...

, Colman "built his reputation and following as a painter of works that combine an evident delight in the lively play of colour and

form Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens. Form also refers to: * Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter dat ...

with allusions to mythic or magical narratives. There was, in a great deal of his work, usually an interplay between the

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

per se and the inner, imaginative landscape."

Personal life

Colman lives in the hills of northeast

County Kilkenny County Kilkenny ( gle, Contae Chill Chainnigh) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the South-East Region. It is named after the city of Kilkenny. Kilkenny County Council is the local authority for the ...

. His wife, Pauline O'Connell, is also an artist.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colman, Eamon Irish male painters Aosdána members Painters from Dublin (city) Alumni of the National College of Art and Design 20th-century Irish painters 21st-century Irish painters People from County Kilkenny Irish landscape painters Members of the Royal Hibernian Academy Living people 1957 births 20th-century Irish male artists