Silent World

Exhibition Note

Adrian Tarpey began to draw at two years of age. He had already been diagnosed as profoundly deaf, and he had poor body control, but his mother noticed he was fascinated with his hands, and how they moved. She gave him some crayons and markers and he began to express himself by making images of cars and houses and Christmas trees. His parents actively encouraged him.

At the age of four he was assessed as having autism. Since then he has always gone to special schools, mostly in Dublin, latterly in the Galway Association's School and Training Centre in Snipe Avenue. He continued to draw and paint winning two Texaco awards, but suddenly, when he was nine years of age, it all stopped.

One day, eight years later, he copied his teachers' work at St. Josephs, and she, Mary O'Brien, encouraged him to paint more. He moved to St. Josephs Training Centre where unit director Sue Patching placed him in the personal care of instructor Margaret Parry. Due to encouragement of these two dedicated people Adrian's ability continued to develop.

He has never mastered sign language, though himself and his family have evolved their own form of signing. Painting is his only other form of communicating with the world.

All aspects of his paintings are of equal importance to him, the smallest detail and the main feature. His themes are everyday and familiar - the world he knows - wild flowers, landscape, still life, but he infuses them with an energy resulting in a vigorous and unique brilliance. His subjects are given new life, their perspectives subtly altered and renewed. Though he draws and paints what is in front of him, he does so with style and honesty, without censure, the truth as he sees it.

He uses brushes and paints to communicate to us his unique vision. Sensations and colours are filtered through the prism of his autism. He is a skilled technician who has the capacity to pick up new techniques once he is shown how.