COLIN WATSON: JOURNEY TO THE EAST    Mar 18 - Mar 27, 2009

The exhibition will then travel on to Northern Ireland (NI) to be on show at the Ava Gallery in Clandeboye Estate, from 7 – 25 April.

The exhibition, entitled Journey to the East, will comprise forty new paintings, predominately in casein tempera, and will include work examining the traditional culture, dance, music and architecture of countries visited on the Royal Tour, as well as Morocco, a country that has inspired Watson over many years.

Born in Belfast in 1966, Colin Watson graduated in Fine Art from the University of Ulster in 1988. Since then he has exhibited widely in London, Dublin, New York and Morocco, as well as throughout NI, predominantly with the Ava Gallery. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Ulster Academy, winning awards at the latter two. Watson’s work has also been included in the BP Portrait Prize Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and The Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries, London.

Colin Watson is represented in a number of private and public collections, including the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, Limerick and the Royal Geographical Society, London, who hold a portrait by Watson of Sir Wilfred Thesiger, the British explorer and travel writer.

Of Journey to the East, Watson has said: “The exhibition will also include a number of larger scale multi-figure compositions, and new Moroccan landscape and interior paintings, which further develop my ongoing concerns with the figure, and explore other dimensions to art that are beyond just topographical interest or a simple replication of the world.”

Since Watson last showed in London in 2006, he has had successful solo exhibitions in both Morocco and Dublin. This will be Watson’s fifth London exhibition and his first with Dickinson. It will also be his first solo show in NI, where he has been represented by Ava Gallery since 2003.

Thoughts on Journey to the East

“These new paintings will be a new development in subject matter for me, as my work moves from the arid heat of Morocco to the tropical climes of the rainforests and water villages in Brunei and Sumatra.
“My recent travels with HRH The Prince of Wales have been a great inspiration for this forthcoming show, and it has been even more rewarding to experience it with someone who has a shared vision of these cultures and architecture. Providing a visual record of the trip for the Royal Collection, I was overwhelmed by the wonders of Borobudur in Central Java and by the great Buddhist monastery of Todaiji in Japan. Among the many cultural events we witnessed I was greatly moved by a magical Javanese dance performance accompanied by the classical gamelan assemble in the Palace of the Sultan of Yogyarkarta.
Colin Watson

“We believe Colin Watson is one of the most significant contemporary painters working in Ireland today, and it is a privilege to be holding his first solo Northern Irish show, as well as working together with a gallery such as Dickinson to bring this new body of work to the attention of collectors in Ireland, Great Britain and beyond.
“Colin has always travelled extensively and the understanding of Islamic culture and the art that has emerged from his journeys has always made his work highly distinctive and resonant, so it will be fascinating to see how his immersion in places such as Japan, Indonesia and Brunei, which he has now had such a unique opportunity to visit, will affect his latest work.”
Dickon Hall, Director of Ava Gallery

“We are very excited to be showing Colin Watson as we have acquired and collected his works for some years.”
Simon Dickinson and David Ker, Directors of Dickinson