“Michael Flaherty’s work is truly amazing … the richness of Jack B. Yeats with the contemporary eye of Seán MacSweeney, I’m stunned (with delight)”  Bhreathnach-Lynch, Curator of Irish Art, National Gallery of Ireland

 Dun Chaoin, oil on canvas, 24″ x 34″ (60 x 85 cm)

“No city or landscape is truly real until it has been given the quality of myth by a writer or painter. The way Michael Flaherty is dealing with the Dingle and Brandon area is part of this mythologizing, the making of this area very special.”

“Michael Flaherty is best known for his landscapes; spontaneous, lyrical compositions that bring to mind aspects of the work of artists as diverse as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Henry and Sean McSweeney”.

Born in Cloghane, Brandon, Co. Kerry, Michael paints the apocalyptic power of nature in his unpopulated landscape. In a highly personal style he captures very quickly scenes which are familiar to him. His paintings are the response to and depiction of a place, or an object, or an animal, as it is filtered through his imagination; hence colours are heightened, scenes are more intense and the sense of movement is more vital.

An Fear Marloh, oil on canvas, 18″ x 26″, (45 x 65 cm)

Looking West, Dingle Peninsula, oil on canvas, 20″ x 26″, (50 x 64 cm)

Michael’s true vocation to painting came out of curiosity. He states that he basically found a pencil, “I thought this was it – it was like discovering language”. While he takes influence from the expressionists, Michael doesn’t subscribe to their movement but empathises with their style; and indeed like the German expressionists, Michael’s paintings instil a “frenetic emotional intensity”. He has a “remarkably assured technique” that is “incredibly fresh, incredibly instant”.