John Shinnors b.1950

Having painted using what the artist describes as 'a very super-realist style' in the late 70s, Shinnors developed a more fluid visual vocabulary in the 1980s.  However, it was a crucial occurence in the early 1990s that inspired the move toward the bold abstract style he is so well known for today; '...I was in Kilkee, out on George's Head. It was a miserable day, with a grey mist over everything. Looking down, there was a tiny white figure moving against the rock, and I saw a flash of yellow in the sky. It was a child playing with a kite, and something clicked. It had all the elements - the human presence, air, sky and sea, a kind of dynamic interaction, and me, an interpreter, which is what I count myself as now...' (Shinnors in conversation with Aidan Dunne, John Shinnors, Gandon Editions, Kinsale, 2002, p.18) 

Since then, the energetic yet elegant movement of kites soaring through the sky has been an important recurring image in Shinnors's work.  Alongside scarecrows, birds, umbrellas and lighthouses, they are amongst his most recognizable images.

Born in Limerick, Shinnors still lives and works in that city and was the subject of a major retrospective at the Limerick City Gallery of Art in 2001 which toured to the Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo and the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork.