This three person show by award winning printmakers, Richard Lawlor, James McCreary and Lars Nyberg, explores the intricate nature of the fine art printmaking techniques; drypoint, etching and mezzotint.

Richard Lawlor’s etchings delve into the sometimes chaotic world of relationships between men and women. Witnessed through the scope of classic cinema, spanning several different film periods, as well as a range of fictional fantastical characters that depict a dreamlike quality, yet capture this fractious tension through the contrast of light and dark.

James McCreary’s mezzotints exist on the shadowy threshold, emerging from or returning to the darkness that illuminates them. There is an immediacy to his work that reaches out to the viewer and only completes itself in the viewer’s visceral response.

Lars Nyberg’s delicate, hand-coloured drypoints, represent a range of unusual, common and gentle plants and their shadows. Nybery will ‘meet’ a plant and be drawn to make a portrait of it. The beautiful shadow of the plant is often of equal importance. Thousands of small drypoint dots later create a shadow in the copperplate. He finds it be be a very meditative method. Why does he make these portraits? “Maybe because it is just a happiness trying to hear what a small Plant has to say or listening to a whispering Shadow?”.

Richard Lawlor is a Dublin based printmaker and a member of Graphic Studio Dublin. He recently graduated with a degree in fine art printmaking from Dun Laoghaire College, Design and Technology and has since participated in several group exhibitions.

James McCreary joined Graphic Studio Dublin in 1973, where he studied various printmaking techniques, leading to his appointment as Studio Manager in 1980, and later as Director from 1989-2000. He established the Visiting Artists Programme, which has introduced many of Ireland’s leading artists to printmaking. Along with Mary Farl Powers and James O’Nolan, he was responsible for the establishment of Graphic Studio Gallery in Cope Street in 1988. In 2005 James was invited to become a member of Aosdána.

Lars Nyberg was born in Sweden and attended The Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. He specialises in drypoint. In 2001 Nyberg was commissioned by the Nobel Committee for Physiology & Medicine to create an edition for that year’s Nobel Laureate, and since 2006 he has been responsible for selecting the artists commissioned to create the annual editions. From 1986 to 1996 he taught at the College of Printmaking Arts in Stockholm. The National Gallery of Ireland has recently acquired 27 of his works, 5 of which will feature in an exhibition ’Silent City’ (13th April – 21st July 2024) curated by Dara McElligott. He is a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, London.

All three artists’ work is a testament to their skill and talent in each of the traditional printmaking techniques, and we are delighted to be showcasing their work in the gallery.