The Doorway Gallery is delighted to host an exhibition by Jack Hickey called ‘The Nocturnes' on Thursday, September 4th between 6-8pm on 24 South Frederick Street. The exhibition will be officially opened by Ray Byrne, Hotelier, Restaurateur and Nightclub Operator and it will run until September 25th.
"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day"
Vincent Van Gogh
Dealing with Ireland’s social nightlife, Jack Hickey’s most recent collection, illustrates the beautiful, the ridiculous, and the menacing of the clouded contemporary cityscape. The work explores the shaded underclass of the nocturnal urban terrain and pursues the disenfranchised as they search their city for meaning once darkness falls.
This will be Jack Hickey’s third solo show and his first solo exhibition in Dublin.
The Artist
Jack Hickey was born in 1988 in the small town of Cobh.
He studied Fine Art at the Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork and graduated in 2011.
His work attempts to illuminate the emptiness at the centre of human relationships, the inherent lack of meaningful interaction between different people, different sexes and different realities. The open space in the work represents the distance between individuals, the unsaid and the unrequited.
It is an example of a void inherent in a modern, socially fractured world, where true human contact has become illusive, almost impossible. His paintings strive to show the hole at the centre, the empty room within, the point where unease begins.
"His wonderfully executed paintings capture an elusive aspect of modern human relationships;
illuminating the emptiness and the inherent lack of communication between different people."
"There are no faces, and there's a certain film noir feel to this work.
It's about the possible significance of those private silences and in-between moments that punctuate our lives."
Backwater Artists Group was founded in 1990 by graduates of the Crawford College of Art and Design.
Backwater caters for over thirty artists, ranging from the more established to the emerging.
The group studios are located in the Wandesford Quay complex.
"Great to meet and get advice from such a successful artist.
Was a good experience to see his studio and how he works.
I recommend for anyone who enjoys painting to check it out." — Jack Hickey
"New graduate shows raise the question of whether art should be led by ideas or skills, Cristín Leach...
...Jack Hickey, at the Crawford College of Art and Design (CCAD) in Cork, combined skill with concept in a
series of intensely atmospheric realist paintings of near-empty rooms with glimpses of their half-dressed occupants."
"...Jack Hickey displays a level of technical ability beyond that of many recent graduates.
Hickey, in particular, is the real deal, an artist with a clear vision and the ability to realise it in paint.
His canvasses - of glimpsed figures in otherwise empty rooms - are some of the best in recent graduate exhibitions."
Irish Times
"Jack Hickey's fragmentary views of figures in interiors are well judged."
Date: Thursday September 4th
Guest Speaker: Ray Byrne, Hotelier, Restaurateur and Nightclub Operator
Time: 6pm
Refreshments served