Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, is pleased to announce ‘the skies will be friendlier then’, an exhibition of new work by Eoin Mc Hugh. This will be the artist’s first exhibition in Ireland since the acclaimed ‘Augury’ at Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 2013.

Mc Hugh’s hyper-real/hyper-surreal language is driven by his interest in the psychology of imagery; a two and three dimensional investigation of the space between the image, the object and the idea. ‘the skies will be friendlier then’ marks a major development within Mc Hugh’s practice, introducing ambitiously complex sculptural and textile works. Several Persian and Turkish carpets are reconstructed as large-scale collages where forms are suggested from neutral abstract patterns in conflict. An enormous, flayed and headless beast, like something never witnessed before, is in turn confronted by an equally otherworldly, crouching infant. These works, accompanied by an intimate oil painting of a woman lying in foetal position, apparently cite the early history and aesthetics of psychoanalysis and the poems of Wallace Stevens and Seamus Heaney. These references, however, are by no means immediately obvious, and through suspension of disbelief, Mc Hugh strives to constantly keep the viewer questioning how they process images, preventing one definitive interpretation being extracted from the work.

Eoin Mc Hugh’s solo shows include Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2013); TR1 Kunsthalle, Tampere, Finland (2012); Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (2009); Centre d’art Contemporain, Château des Adhémar, Montélimar, France (2008); TBG+S, Dublin (2006). Group shows include ‘Interlude’, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2011); ‘Perfect Solitude’, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam; ‘Thingamajig’, Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland; ‘Terror and the Sublime’, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (2010); ‘Flight of the Dodo’, Project Arts Centre, Dublin; ‘Warming to Rabelais, Like Things Frozen’, FRAC Languedoc-Rousillon, Abbaye de Lagrasse, Lagrasse (2008); ‘Don’t Box me in’, Galeria Leme, San Paolo; ‘Rendez Vous’, in conjunction with the Lyon Biennale, France (2007) travelling to Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2008); ‘The Square Root of Drawing’, TBG+S, Dublin; EV+A, Limerick (2006); ‘Precaution’, Irish Museum of Modern Art (2005).