Matthew O'Kane, Irish Artist, Ireland

Matthew OKanes Polish Strongholds at the Paul Kane Gallery features paintings and video works chronicling travels in Poland. The strongholds are perhaps the ruined fortresses and expanses of forest that we see. For the most part, there is snow on the ground. In the videos, we glimpse vast tracts of landscape in passing, and the same sense of scale and transience comes across in the paintings, so the atmosphere is well conveyed.

Aidan Dunne The Irish Times 7th May 2008

'Less than a year after completing a master's degree at Dublin City University, Matthew O'Kane has a solo exhibition at The Paul Kane Gallery. Titled Polish Strongholds, the show explores the sociological phenomena of the 21st century travel and the relationship between history and contemporary art practice. Polish Strongholds comprises 15 paintings and two animations documenting isolated locations during winter. Snow scenes abound, with painted sub-series' Forest Avalanche, Frozen Hill and Rabsztyn Ruin doing exactly what they say on the tin, and are often vistas as seen from a car window: Forest Avalanche II and VII, actually include the dashboard. O'Kanes technique involves lashings of paint congealed into sections of sculptural impasto, the textured surfaces enhancing the rugged locations, yet in pleasing contrast with the delicately sugar-coated landscapes. Yellow oils and acrylics clot into the white paint to suggest sunlight.'

Views of splendid Isolation, Lucy White, Metro 2008

'Matthew O'Kane is a recent graduate of NCAD Fine Art Department 2006, since which he has completed a MScin Multimedia at Dublin City University. His work was shortlisted for a Digital Media award by Ashville Media Group. He showed is a three person show New at the Paul Kane Gallery in 2007and will be having a solo show there in 2008. His work is in many public and private collections including the Royal Dublin Society, OPW and the National College of art and design Permanent Collection'

'Perhaps influence by William Kentridge...is evident in Matthew O'Kane's capable animation, but his video of a winter train journey is particularly atmospheric.'

'Matthew O'Kane's fabricated landscapes repeatedly represent their subject; a European destination is photographed and transformed into an element in an imagined virtual arena, which he in turn paints as a final product. The circuitous process questions the nature of the real and the reproduction and draws attention to the ongoing creative process.'

Marianne O'Kane Boal, New Irish Painting, Context Galleries, Derry, 2005


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