Michael Kane
b. 1935, Ireland
Michael Kane’s juvenile drawings were imbued with the romantic aura of the local landscape in which he spent his first twenty years. In his early twenties he travelled throughout Europe for most of a year. On his way home he found himself marooned in London through lack of funds for five months. Here he painted what proved to be the first serious picture of his post-college career, Political Speech (IMMA).
Having lived during the great flowering of 20th Century modernist / progressive art and socialist idealism, his influences are rooted in this tradition. Besides the modernist influences in his work, there is a strong affinity with the geometry of early Renaissance painting and the expressionism of Gothic sculpture. He is strongly attracted to African sculpture, and has been putting together a small collection in recent years. During the same period, having no formal training in the discipline, he has been experimenting with miscellaneous to-hand materials to produce small sculptures, some of which have been cast in bronze.
(Text: e v+ a – matters catalogue, 2010)
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