Opening Reception Tuesday 22 October at 7pm

Meath County Council Arts Office is delighted to present ‘Landscapes, Dreamscapes and Other Things’, an exhibition of work by Aidan Flanagan. Aidan Flanagan is an artist/printmaker originally from Laois, but now based in Ratoath, Co. Meath.

Aidan spent 34 years in the Irish Air Corps, during this time he painted mainly in watercolours. In the late 1990s he stumbled across screenprinting, and became fascinated with the possibilities that it presented. He bought books on the subject, and learned how to create landscapes through screenprint. In 2008, he retired from the IAC, and concentrated on printmaking. In 2012, he expanded his knowledge of printmaking by undertaking workshops in the Graphic Studio, Dublin, where he learned about the Carborundum, Photopolymer Intaglio and Monotype printmaking techniques.

The works in this show, created over the last five years, are a mixture of landscapes, real and imagined, dreamscapes, and other things.

The landscapes are mostly of places that are familiar to Aidan through holidaying in Ireland. The effect of light and shade on the landscape, is what he attempts to convey in his work. Some of his more recent landscapes have evolved through exploratory sketches of imagined landscapes.

During 2012, he did a series of more abstract prints that he has grouped under the heading of Dreamscapes. These prints evolved from a close examination of brush strokes and mark-making. “I picked out curious shapes and developed them into what I hope are interesting images.” A.F.

In a further development of this process, he created other prints, but gave them titles that give the viewer some clues. These prints come under the, ‘other things’ part, of the title of his exhibition.

“Also under the ‘other things’ is a labour of love, which I have titled Air Corps Memories. Having spent 34 great years in the Irish Air Corps, I couldn’t resist the temptation to include images of aircraft. Originally, my intention was to create prints of the aircraft that I had flown during my service. I expanded the project to include all aircraft that were in service during my 34 years. Later I decided to include all aircraft types since the start of the Irish Air Corps in 1922. These prints are presented in a book format, and also as a framed version of the twelve pages of the book. The exhibition also includes four screenprints with layers of complex images related to the Air Corps.“