“Castlemorris Woods,” at the 92nd Street Y through Nov. 18, brings together a body of work created by Irish painter Donald Teskey following his 2022 Tony O’Malley Residency in Callan, Co. Kilkenny. During the year-long residency, Teskey immersed himself in the ancient woodland surrounding Castlemorris, a landscape he had long wanted to explore through painting.
Best known for his powerful depictions of the Irish coast, Teskey here exchanges sea and rock for the enclosed world of the woods. These immersive landscapes draw attention to the vitality and endurance of the forest, and to trees as both ancient presences and essential, life sustaining forms within a natural world increasingly shaped by climate change.
In an introductory essay to the exhibition, “If You Go Down to Woods Today: For Donald Teskey,” the poet and playwright Paula Meehan refers to a work she has by Teskey that has the “sea hitting a slab of rock, sending up a spray of white paint. It is so vivid and dramatic and powerful that I am surprised to find the ocean has stayed within the frame of the painting. It is a moment of elemental flux caught forever by the painter’s magic art. Even the slab of coastal rock is in flux, albeit the flux of vast eons of geological time.”
“Hedgerow I” (2023) 100cm x 120cm, oil on canvas.
Presented by Oliver Sears Gallery, “Castlemorris Woods” is shown concurrently at 92NY in New York and at the gallery in Dublin, linking the two cities in a celebration of Teskey’s work as he reaches 70. (The New York opening, at which Ireland’s Consul General Gerald Angley introduced the painter, took place on his birthday.) Together, the exhibitions invite viewers to consider the beauty, complexity, and quiet force of the natural world.
Viewing Hours: The exhibition is open to the public though Nov. 18, free of charge on Sundays and Tuesdays from 9 a.m.–12 p.m. with the following exceptions: Tuesday 9/8 (Open 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.), Closed Sunday 9/13, Closed Tuesday 10/27 (Open Monday 10/26), Closed Sunday 11/1 (Open Monday 11/2). At all other times, it is accessible to ticketed patrons attending events in Kaufmann Concert Hall and the Weill Art Gallery. Visit 92ny.org for more details.
Woodland VIII 2023 120 x 150 oil on canvas_Donald Teskey.jpeg
“Woodland VIII” (2023) 120cm x 150cm, oil on canvas.
