Radharc: An exhibition of works by Tadhg McSweeney 7 – 29 July, Macroom Town Hall gallery, Macroom, Co. Cork

Radharc is a selected exhibition of painting and prints by artist Tadhg McSweeney. Radharc – meaning view or vantage point – provides a rare opportunity to see the world as experienced through the completely unique eye of Tadhg McSweeney. This exhibition is organised by the Arts Office of Cork County Council in association with Macroom Town Council and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland

Radharc will be opened by Professor Gearóid Crowley at 8pm on Thursday July 7th in Macroom Town Hall.

Tadhg McSweeney was born in Kilnamartryra, Macroom Co. Cork, in 1936 where he still resides to this day. He studied painting in the National College of Art, Dublin in 1959, later studying etching, silk and screen printing in London and fresco painting in Italy 1984-85. Tadhg McSweeney is, however, primarily a self taught artist; painting and printing are crafts that he has been honing and perfecting for almost 50 years.

Tadhg is a figurative painter; his work includes landscapes, urbanscapes, seascapes, still-life and portraits. He paints mainly in oils and watercolour, with occasional fresco work. His inspiration comes from the environment as he experiences it and his preference is to work from memory. Tadhg’s painting style is expressive, free and full of movement. It is not bogged down in detail, there is a rawness about his work, that is deliberate; each brush stroke and texture communicates. Brian lynch (poet and art critic) described the simplicity of Tadhg’s work, “It might be said to belong in the tradition of naive painting, but that definition usually presumes a lack of sophistication and McSweeney is the opposite of unsophisticated – he is, all to the contrary, a most learned artist.”