Wann’s work is specifically drawing-based, and juxtaposes arbitrary or transient images of cleared landscape, with more thought provoking depictions of the dereliction of habitation. The work is as much about a process of mark-making as it is about representing a seemingly neglected landscape.

Born in Dublin in 1969, Wann lives and works in Co. Sligo. He has held solo exhibitions at the Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar (2005), the Ashford Gallery at the RHA (2009), and Sligo Art Gallery (1999, 2002, 2005, 2009), where he won an Iontas Drawing Award in 2000. He has been awarded residencies at the Cill Riallaig Project, Co. Kerry (2001, 2004, 2008, 2010), and fellowships at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in North Mayo (2007, 2008). He has been selected for the RHA’s Annual Exhibition since 2004, where in 2006 he was awarded the AXA Insurance Drawing Prize. In 2010 Hughie O’Donoghue selected Michael’s work for both the Tom Caldwell Drawing Prize and the Rowel Friers Perpetual Trophy at the Royal Ulster Academy’s 129th Annual show.

“Michael Wann’s fragile ephemeral images of derelict buildings depict a rare transient quality which is both harrowing and beautiful, evoking themes of memory, neglect and loss.

Despite, or because of his expert skill as a draughtsman, it is within the versatility of the medium (charcoal and water on fine grain canvas) that there exists a delicate balance, between an imperfection of process and an exacting act of observation, adding a poignant vulnerability to this new body of work.”

Clea van de Grijn