Clement McAleer
New Paintings
28 November - 22 December 2000
LONDON Main Gallery

    


Clement McAleer returns for his fourth exhibition at Art First with a refreshing body of work in which the masterly handling of the elements (he paints wind, water, land and air) leads him increasingly towards abstraction. In these works the forms are open and flexible, the light carefully observed, with only the subtlest references to specific place. His work is a mixture of memory, invention and metaphor, informed as much by his travels around Europe (France, Germany, Netherlands) as by his time spent recently in Ireland.

In these new works one finds a broadening of his palette. Vivid flashes of colour enliven the images. Also new is a greater range of subjects; besides the paintings of the Irish coast there are more intimate scenes of wild gardens as well as depictions of more open vistas. These are certainly a reflection of McAleer's wider travels.

McAleer has been exhibiting consistently in the UK and Ireland since leaving the Royal College of Art. His work is found in public and corporate collections in Ireland and England, including the Arts Councils of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ulster Museum, Belfast and the European Parliament, Brussels. He has twice been a John Moores Prizewinner.