Munster Express Online

Jay Lear artist and Mary Gallagher.

Jay Lear’s exhibition Drift for a While was officially launched at Garter Lane Gallery. His quiet paintings are gentle and contain a language bordering somewhere between graffiti and an ancient script. This is especially so in Beginnings.

The inspiration for the first painting in this series came from an icon on a computer screen, once enlarged it became a series of indistinguishable marks. It was the point of departure for the artist. Lear works in an intuitive manner allowing the works themselves to evolve until he reaches the point when they are finished.

Drift for a While was launched by Mary Gallagher on Saturday 12th January. Ms Gallagher is a Transport Consultant by profession. She has a keen interest in the visual and applied arts having curating a number of craft exhibitions. She has also promoted and supported the arts in her professional capacity.

In her speech Mary Gallagher likened Jay Lear’s approach to that of the renowned Cornwall based artist Gillian Ayres. Everything he paints comes from the inside. He doesn’t continuously look to the external but paints from his internal landscape. While looking at One Day We Will Go Up There, Ms Gallagher spoke of how the titles allowed a point of entry into the works themselves.

She later went on to say that the exhibition Drift for a While was a very strong artistic beginning to the year and hoped that 2010 would continue to be as powerful.

Lear’s paintings fill both rooms of Garter Lane Gallery with each space holding its own dynamic. While the works in both galleries are abstract, a number of pieces have a figurative element in the form of a tree such as Red with Tree and Pink Sun With Tree.

All works in oil on canvas vary in scale from the small to larger works. Some of the paintings are more worked than others. The surface qualities are varied from painterly marks to the use of a pallet knife to tentative brush strokes and deftly applied marks.

Jay Lear is an English artist based in Wales. This is his first solo exhibition in Ireland. Drift for a While runs at Garter until the 27th February. The show is open from Tuesday to Friday from 11.00am – 5.30pm and on Saturdays from 11.00am – 3.00pm. Admission is free.