Laurence O’Toole | This Land

“This Land”

This show is a look at the many places in Ireland that I have travelled over the recent years. These are memories and “stop you in my tracks” moments that this land continually throws up, the light cutting across the land, the skies opening up to battle and break the incessant grey, the billowing white towering clouds that dominate and protect this land.
Primarily these pieces are painted in oil on canvas with a lot of the pieces turned out in panoramic form, for this is where the viewer really gets to feel the vista, to see the scope of this ever-changing land. Co. Wicklow, where I was born, features heavily in this show, as it always has in my professional painting career, and probably always will.
This is going to be a show of colour, of energy, it will be an insight into how I see this land and what I find important in it.
BIO-
Laurence O’Toole is a realist painter in both oil and acrylic, whose work is a melding of figurative and nature with a surrealist approach to convey the message in his works. A self-taught artist from Ireland, he has had many solo shows, in Ireland and abroad and is present in many group shows including museums in the USA.
He has won two awards at the Royal Ulster Academy and has shown at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and Royal Scottish Academy. His work has been collected by the OPW and featured in publications and in collections of Banks, film directors, actors, and state institutions. He has also completed many residencies, including Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Spain and France and is part of the time capsule programme that has 30,000 pieces of digital art, music and literature that was on board the Nova Lander that landed on the moon this year and is a new library of humanity for future generations. Currently his work is in the 20 year anniversary of 9/11, which is touring the States and shows in Gallery 33 Contemporary in the USA , Signet Contemporary, London and Hambly and Hambly here in Ireland. Most recently he is a part of the Chianciano Art Biennale 2024, in Italy and a finalist in Lethbridge 20000 art awards Australia.