Statement by Pádraic Reaney, Curator

As a full time artist over the last 30 years, I have happily left the challenges of organising exhibitions to the many excellent curators, gallery owners and administrators I have worked with over the years. But I have taken this once-off opportunity of Project 06 to put together a show featuring the artists I have known and admired over my career. They are known to me through friendship and through working together. This Irish Eye exhibition represents an informal fellowship of artists to which I am proud and honoured to belong. For years I had hoped to see a show like this in Galway and when at the Project '06 meeting I was asked to do this exhibition I was very pleased but somewhat doubtful that it could be done in the timescale. After the meeting I rang a few artists whom I thought of including to get their views on the feasibility of putting a show together. Their comments were very encouraging and made the whole project sound possible. Many of these artists were delighted to be asked to exhibit in Galway as they had not shown here for years.

I have always felt that there were many good artists in this country whose work we don't often see in Galway. My aim was to try to show some of those artists here. With that in mind I made up a list: half Galway artists (a label which I hate to use as I feel we are all Irish artists), and the other half made up from artists around the country. This list was limited to twenty.

There is no theme as such to this exhibition. Each artist had the choice of selecting the works they themselves felt they wanted to show.

I was particularly pleased to include a selection of Tony O'Malley's work in this exhibition, as we have not had the pleasure of seeing his work here in Galway for a long time. For many years I have thought that he is an artist whose work should be extensively exhibited in the west. Although this is only a small selection of the artist's work, my hope would be that this is but a taste of things to come on a bigger scale. I am especially grateful to Jane O'Malley who has worked so hard selecting and cataloguing this selection specially for this exhibition and to the private collector who has so kindly lent us part of his O'Malley collection.

I would like to thank all the artists for participating in the show. Without them, of course, there would be no show. I would also like to especially thank

Michael D.Higgins who has been a great support to this exhibition from the start and has done us the great honour of agreeing to open it. He is, of course, familiar with most if not all of the artists and they with him. And I, myself, if I may, would like to thank Michael for being a friend and supporter to me and my work for many years.

Jane O' Malley for allowing us to have Tony O'Malley's work in this exhibition. She has been most helpful with the project from the beginning.

Brian Bourke and Jay Murphy for letting me use them as sounding boards for the project. Many ideas I had of putting structure on this show were talked out with them and their suggestions have been most helpful.

Seán McSweeney who was one of the first people I contacted to get ideas about the feasibility of a show like this. Always helpful, Seán was very encouraging, but also very quick to point out the pit-falls.

Paul Funge for his helpful advice and ideas from his own shows which he organized in Gorey for many years. In fact, the very first showing of my own non- student work was in one of those exhibitions, so long ago I can't even remember the date.

Leslie Owen for manning the phone and keeping track of information on this exhibition as it came in.

George Walsh for his help on the Dublin side of things.

Dean Kelly (of The Kenny Gallery) for his work on the design of this catalogue, putting it together and seeing it through.

Dr. Ann Gillan, Ronan Delaney and a private collector for their help and support.

And last, but by no means least, special thanks to The Kenny Gallery, particularly to Tom Kenny, to Conor Kenny, and to Karen Golden, for allowing us the use of the gallery space, for the catalogue, for their helpful suggestions, and especially for their untiring support for the Project '06 exhibition, The Irish Eye. We were privileged to be able to tap into their experience and expertise.

Pádraic Reaney
Curator - The Irish Eye, Project '06