Artist: Kieran McGonnell
Dimensions: 60x60
Medium, Oil on Canvas

After completing his degree in Cork Institute of Technology, Kieran headed off to New York's Wall Street workforce- After some initial success and recognition in the highly competitive New York art scene, he abandoned his job and began to paint full time. From 2000 until his untimely death in 2011, he exhibited in a wide variety of galleries and museums across the US. These included the Jackson Junge Gallery, Chicago; Art Drop Studios, Chicago, the Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee; Axel Raben Fine Art, New York; Jan Larsen Fine Art, New York and the Kennedy Centre Festival in Washington.

At first glance his work seemed linked to pop art. However, critics see in his work an expressive quality that is far from Warhol's flat affectless style. He shied away from anything too pretentious, preferring the lighter touch of irony. Many of McGonnell's later works, including "My Old Kentucky Home", were large-scale oils and the work more rigorous and structured that features a series of concentric circles around which he built his images. These added movement and depth to the work and he liked to relate these swirling vortices to Yeats's concept of the genre.

James Kieran McGonnell: born August 13th, 1967; died Chicago, January 11th, 2011

Artwork donated for Art for Life Chicago by Gregg Dribens and Art Drop Studios Chicago