Donegal Landscape

There is a conscious passive quality to john Coyle’s observant painting. During his studies at the National College of Art and Design, the Glasgow School of Art and short periods in Paris, Madrid and Florence, Coyle developed his artistic skills. These abilities explain his rich trajectory as a teacher, be it as the Head of the Art Department of Blackrock College in Dublin, the position of Vice President in the same institution, his lecturer role at the National College of Art and Design and the Dun Laoghaire School of Art. In his paintings of figures, interiors and urban landscapes, composition is carefully considered and classically poised, usually with a strong structural armature. He liked to heighten a generally even palette with a note of tonal or colour contrast, giving his work a certain visual bite. A natural craftsman, he was adept at a number of skills besides drawing and painting, including bookbinding and woodwork. Donegal Landscape is the perfect example of Coyle’s attentive and patient eye. A pastoral scene structured in sets of halves: ground and sky, clouds and shadows. A moment stolen from the temporal flux and fixed in the painter’s memory and on the canvas.