John Noel Smith

Original canvas. The work is in two party that are hinged together. In good original condition. Unframed.
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'...What I paint about is the issue of identity, and part of my identity is composed of being Irish...' (Smith in John Noel Smith, exh. cat., R.H.A., Dublin, September - October 2002, p.17)

Smith's ongoing exploration of his identity has inevitably prompted the artist to examine his country's long history and, as the title of the present work emphasizes, to return to its Primal era. As a result, his work has focused on one of Ireland's most Primal language forms, the early alphabet system known as Ogham. The different letters of the Ogham alphabet were formed by combinations of lines incised along the edge of a memorial stone and have been transformed into the vibrant imagery of the present work by Smith's bold impasto style. He later developed the horizontal focus of the present work into the vertical focus of works such as Ogham V (1998, sold in these rooms, 24 October 2006, see fig.1).  His investigation of the old language within its historical context mirrors Brian O'Doherty/Patrick Ireland's own treatment of the theme in the 1960s.

Born in Dublin, Smith studied at the Dun Laoghaire School of Art and undertook post-graduate study in Berlin. He has exhibited extensively at galleries such as The Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast; The Green on Red Gallery, Dublin; The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, and the Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin.  Having lived and worked in Germany for many years, he was the subject of a retrospective at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin in 2002, shortly after his return to Ireland.