Dolores Lyne - Artist - Galway Independent

Home

Sections

Profiles

Dolores Lyne - Artist

Written by Administrator

Wednesday, 07 February 2007

Kerry football legend Pat Spillane's love of post match analysis had its genesis at the dinner table of his first cousin, Galway based artist Dolores Lyne.

A native of Killarney, Dolores studied art in Waterford, specialising in painting in her last year. Her love affair with Galway commenced during a weekend spent in The City of the Tribes during her final year in college. "I thought it was such a creative city. You could have a job as an artist, a valid job as opposed to being an oddity," she says.

Though she had made the decision to move, fate intervened when she met the man who was to become her husband: James Harrold. He was running Wexford Arts Centre, where she was holding an exhibition. Though Dolores' sojourn in the sunny South East lasted longer than she anticipated, she fulfilled her dream to move to Galway when James was offered the Galway City Arts Officer post in the early 1990s.

Dolores turned her attention to landscape painting when she moved to Rossaveal. "Scenery and sea was all around me and I thought I have to have a go at this. I could see Inis Oirr from where I lived. It is a magical place and I was drawn to it. The islands are very prominent in Killarney, and we used to go out exploring them all the time as kids."

It is interesting to note as Dolores moved inland to Moycullen, she started to focus on still winter scenes. Nine of these pieces feature in a forthcoming exhibition by AKIN (of which she is a member). Dr Patricia Donlon, Director of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, will open the exhibition on Thursday 8 February at Norman Villa Gallery, Salthill. The other members of AKIN, who have been together since 1994, are Siobhan Piercy, Athenry, Jay Murphy, Moycullen, Leonie King, Oranmore and Margaret Irwin, Claddaghduff. For the group's tenth anniversary, they exhibited in ten venues throughout the country, from Listowel to Falcarragh.

According to Dolores, there will be a real mixture of styles and mediums in the exhibition, ranging from pastels, etching, screen painting and oil on canvas. She works with oil on canvass, drawing in charcoal and mixed media. The group, which exhibits at the annual Clifden Arts Festival, wants to showcase its work to the widest possible audience.

The Moycullen-based artist is on the board of Artspace Studios, based at Liosban and The Black Box, and is one of 26 artists based there. A woman of many parts, she is also a successful designer for theatre and film. She was one of just ten people chosen to study set design at the prestigious Motley Theatre Design Course in London. Her most notable success was designing the set for 'Pig Town' in the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick, which won 'The Irish Times' Best Set Design in Ireland in 1999. Dolores also worked on sets for An Taibhdhearc's 'The Righteous Are Bold' and Druid Theatre's 'Carthaginians'.

One of her most interesting assignments was as a buyer for Magma Films' recent film 'The Summer of the Flying Saucer'. "I always knew I was good at shopping, but I didn't know there was a job in it," she jokes. After sourcing an impossible-to-attain turf slean, it split and she had an hour to get a replacement!

Dolores also worked on a trailer for a feature by Abú Media in Indreabháin. She will be part of an exhibition of West of Ireland women landscape artists in Clare in July, while a solo exhibition is also on the cards.

Comments (0) »