Michael Quane RHA

Michael Quane was born in 1962. The world he found himself in, as an eager spectator, was displayed to him on an early black and white TV.  The screen showed him Vietnam, civil-rights marches, Northern Ireland, a man walking on the Moon, the theatre of the Cold War, Chopper bikes, flared jeans and many Apollos inspiring him to want to be an astronaut—for a while anyway.   The Day of the Trifids and Carl Sagan on the telly also caught his attention.  The latter gave him a very welcome metric of cosmic perspective and an appetite for it since and the former, simply, terrifying the life out of him. 

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Later, having just about survived a Huck Finn style adolescence on a home built raft on the lacework of rivers and lakes near his home in the late 70s, and passing through 6 different schools and a university, studying Science, he arrived at Art College where he studied for 5 years up to 1987, to a Post Graduate level.

In art college much of what he’d previously been schooled-in needed to be shelved, and novelty, now, needed to be taken very seriously indeed. He achieved independence through bar-work, and bought a fast bicycle and an astronomical telescope to better see the heavens with and hurtled through those years with enthusiasm: finding love and having his heart broken in equal proportions along the way.

Since then he’s traveled a bit, moved house many times and studio more times than that, built a shedifice or two, restored and renovated an old church building, had two beautiful children, Lucy and Josef, and managed to make sculpture in between.

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For a significant while he lived and worked in West Cork, adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean. Here he was drawn to the human binary of passion and prudence and found something of that exposed near to the close proximity of the land with the sea. He lived there, with his dog Coco, well within the range of the Atlantic’s briny mist, and most days, he visited the strip on either side of its tidal breath by either Kayak or on foot. 

His Covid-19 times coincided with a complete upheaval in the architecture of his life and work and his hurtling along began all over again;  where so much happens from so many different directions that it is difficult to make any sense of it at all.  Needless to say, it did include moving house and studio once more and before eventually settling, the studio once more again.  The hurtle continued until eventually it seemed, waking from its maelstrom, once again back in the renovated Old Church building, was accompanied by a life affirming gasp of air in the late Spring of 2020.

During the lockdowns there was a welcome up-tick in renovations which included a Gallery and an attempt to re-fashion the Sh-edifice studio brought with him, when moving from West Cork. An unsuccessful bash at even conceiving this as plausible led to a very successful stab at simply recycling the materials. It resulted, to his delight, in a very bright, open and airy studio work space.

All the while through those Covid days with newly-met-Johanna from West Cork they, together, and with gallons of paint, brightened up their shared world of 2 Studios: One Gallery. He and Coco now live with Johanna, and her companion dog Toast, and they each work in one of those studios in Coachford, County Cork. They married each other in 2023. 

Selected Collections

University College Cork - Butler Gallery - Nicholas Treadwell Gallery - OPW - Dept. of Justice - Kilkenny County Council - University of Limerick - Cork County Council - Cork City Council - Cork County Library Service - Flynn Hotel Group - Farmgate Restaurant, Lismore -Farmgate Cafe English Market, Cork - Allied Irish Bank - AXA Insurance - Castlebar General Hospital - Nissan Ireland - Kileen Group Holdings - OPW State Art Collection - Private Collections in Ireland, UK, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria and the US.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

  • 2024 Belonging - Solomon Fine Art - Dublin.

  • 2020 Strange Beasts - Lavit Gallery - Cork.

  • 2019 Skibbereen Arts Festival - West Cork Hotel - Cork

  • 2019 Recent Sculpture - Solomon Fine Art - Dublin

  • 2011Out of Pareidolia - Triskel Christchurch - Cork

  • 2007 Buoyed - Vangard Gallery - Cork

  • 2004 Lewes Live Literature - Lewes - UK

  • 2002 Featured Artist - Eigse - Carlow

  • 2001New Works - Fenton gallery - Cork

  • 1998 New Works - Temple Bar Gallery - Dublin

  • 1997 New Works - Halward Gallery - Dublin

  • 1992 New works - Triskel Arts Centre - Cork

Selected joint Exhibitions

  • 2019 At Kellys Hotel Rosslare with Caroline Ward, coinciding with the Wexford Opera Festival.

  • 2003 At the Vangard Cork with Anna Barden.

  • 1989 Across the water - Crypt Gallery - London, with Mary Rose O’ Neill.

  • 1989 Touring to Collins Gallery, Glasgow.

Group Exhibitions — 2019 Numerous past Group Exhibitions each year including 

  • Art and Soul, International Art Festival, Culloden Resort, Belfast.

  • New York, London, Paris, Ghent, Los Angeles and Basle Art Fairs.

  • Many Group Exhibitions in Dublin, Cork, London, Glasgow, Basle and Amsterdam.

  • Each year at the RHA Annual Exhibition

Selected Commissions 

  • Fish Man - public/private - Basle - Switzerland

  • Bovine - private - Basle - Switzerland

  • Tomás Ó Criomhthain - An tOileánach - OPW - Dún Chaoin - Ireland

  • Fallen Horse and Rider - Midleton UDC - Ireland

  • Figure talking to a Quadruped - UCC- Ireland

  • Horses and Riders - Cork County Council - Mallow- Co. Cork

  • History and a Dust Cloth - Cork County Council - Ballincollig - Co. Cork.

  • Lapidophytum Stagnalis - OPW - National Botanic Gardens - Dublin.

  • Time and a Dust-Sheet - Castleblayney - Co. Monaghan.

  • Persona - OPW - Mayorstone Garda HQ - Limerick

  • Tracing Steps - Duchas - Killarney - Co. Kerry

  • Figure with Buoyancy - Castlebar General Hospital - Co. Mayo.

  • Pupa - Coillte - Sculpture in Woodland - Co. Wicklow

  • Scotia - private - London

  • Dreamer in G, private, Old Ground Hotel, Ennis

  • Oisín agus Embarr. remembering Frank Murray, music Manager and facilitator for many, incl Phil Lynnot, and The Pogues.

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Peer recognition 

  • 1998 Elected to Aosdána

  • 2004 Elected a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy

Awards 

  • The Solomon Gallery Sculpture award, 2018

  • De Vere’s award for a work of distinction, 2018.

  • Shortlisted for the RCSI Award RHA, 2018.

  • ESB Moran Silver Medal for Sculpture.

  • AXA Drawing Award

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