Brian Bourke1936 -

uded in the Delighted Eye, the Hibernian Landscape and the Cork Rosc exhibitions in 1980. In 1985, he was named Sunday Independent Artist of the Year, and received the O'Malley Award from the Irish-American Cultural Institute in 1993. Brian McAvera  noted in his catalogue essay on Burke for The Antoinette & Patrick Murphy Sale (Adam's October 23rd 2019) 'Thematically, Bourke, whether working in sculptures, oils, watercolour, drawing.... tends to concentrate upon a relatively limited number of genres: landscapes, portraits, self-portraits and nudes' and they are subjects that he returns to over and again throughout his career. In many ways they are the essence of what makes up life and as an artist he has dedicated his craft to expressing them through the medium of his colourful and surreal compositions. Working within this somewhat restricted repertoire, Burke has managed to create works full of colour and sensation as he remarked himself, painting 'is the transformation of something mundane into something that is full of life'.   His work is included in public and private collections both in Ireland and abroad. He was elected a member of Aosdána and is an Honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy. He lives in Co. Galway and is represented by Taylor Galleries in Dublin.