The Butler Gallery is pleased to present an overview of the still life paintings of Kilkenny-based artist Blaise Smith. This exhibition includes loans from collectors nationwide of works from 1998 to the present.

“…the genre of still life has inspired some of his most personal and speculative work, in which he tests the boundaries of his whole approach to picture-making. He sees his still lifes as ‘much more abstract, in a sense, than the landscapes or portraits’.’
Aidan Dunne, from Irish Arts Review, Spring 2021

One of the fundamental artistic genres, the still life remains a staple of Smith’s practice. The works on view are carefully structured and represent subject matter such as fruit, vegetables, flowers, cheese and such vessels as vases, glasses, a teapot, ceramic bowls and cups, or battered aluminium saucepan. These paintings act as the traces of our everyday world with an often idiosyncratic beauty, which is why they reward a closer examination.

Blasie Smith (born. 1967) is a multi-talented representational painter who has exhibited widely in Ireland and abroad and has won many awards. He has been commissioned to paint many notable portraits including a group portrait of eight Scientists for the Women on Walls Campaign which won the 2017 US Council / Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award. He attended N.C.A.D and his work is held in many public and private collections. His artistic practice documents Irish life in the 21^st century with painterly realist works observed from life through landscape, portraiture and still life. He was elected a full Royal Hibernian Academy in 2017.