Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Contemporary artist Hughie O'Donoghue has long been fascinated by war - not the grand military moments depicted in traditional history painting, but the story of the individual. The starting-point for O'Donoghue has been an engagement with his father's experiences as an infantryman in the Second World War, centring on his father's retreat from France through the port of Cherbourg in June 1940, after the evacuation of Dunkirk, and the advance in Italy in 1944, including the Battle of Monte Cassino. O'Donoghue sees his body of work on the theme of war as "a visual equivalent of the classical epic poem, with individual pictures functioning like chapters, verses or lines." The analogy is carried through into the works themselves, many of which tell their often complicated story in a strikingly visual, semi-abstracted way through metaphor, symbolism and references that derive from ancient Greek mythology, in a manner that recalls the work of O'Donoghue's contemporaries Anselm Kiefer or Miguel Barcelo.The story of the individual thereby becomes the story of everyman - a story at once intimate and anonymous. In this, the first major study of one of Ireland's most engaging artists, the themes of history, memory and identity are movingly explored.

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CHOICE Review

O'Donoghue (b.1953), a Manchester-born painter now residing in Ireland, is drawn to somber and introspective images of blurred bodies engulfed in darkness or barely recognizable objects lost in a landscape of dulled tones. Often his disturbing canvases receded into abstract experiments with broadly applied color, usually dark yellows and blues set against a persistent black. There is a haunting quality to his drawings and to art created from altering books and old photographs with colored washes. Enigmatic titles such as "Clay Feet" or "Incident near Huppy" are explained by James Hamilton, university curator at Birmingham University and author of books on J.M.W. Turner, in his essay "Painting, Memory, Myth," which provides a brief but effective introduction to O'Donoghue's art and life, especially to the recurring theme in his work of his father's WW II experiences. Several of O'Donoghue's writings are included and provide useful insights. Abundant and vivid color illustrations make up the bulk of this book. An index of the book's art and a "selected bibliography" are included along with a chronology of O'Donoghue's individual and group exhibitions. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels. W. S. Rodner Tidewater Community College