LEE WELCH
IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS
Pallas Projects/Studios are pleased to present Lee Welch—In Praise of Idleness, the second exhibition of our 2024 Artist-Initiated Projects programme.
IN PRAISE OF IDLENESS
18 APRIL - 5 MAY 2024
PALLAS PROJECTS/STUDIOS
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Often based on existing images, the works make allusions to the history of art, architecture, literature and cinema, and as well as to Welch’s personal photographs – but these reference points are always abstracted, distilled, removed and recast in the artist’s distinct aesthetic universe. Figures might appear in domestic settings, or taking part in leisure activities, kindling a sense of familiarity with the viewer – and yet their flattened details and textures also keep them at a distance from us. This tension between intimacy and restraint is continued in Welch’s handling of materials, which is spare but sensuous: single layers of paint leave a gauzy finish, while unpainted sections reveal strips of bare canvas or tactile fabric. Produced quickly but with delicacy, the paintings often use a softened palette of pastel and earth tones. The artist talks of the paintings waiting ‘mutely – patiently – for the viewer to animate them’ – an animation that takes place upon entry into the viewer’s imagination, where it might spark recollections of images embedded deep in the psyche, connections with a rich array of cultural touchstones, or unlock abstract and hard-to-reach emotions.
SELECTED ARTWORKS
Installation view, No feeling is final, Live Collision at Project Art Centre, Dublin, 2019
the benefit of the doubt, 2022
acrylic on gesso panel
25 X 20 cm / 9.8 X 7.9 in
we will be silent for a while, 2023
acrylic on canvas
30 x 25 cm / 11.8 x 9.8 in
I will try to speak with more simple words, 2022
acrylic on polyester
68.5 x 51 cm / 27 x 20.1 in
At the beginning of Putin's invasion of Ukraine Russian tennis star Andrey Rublev shared a pointed message of peace after winning a semi-final match at the Dubai Tennis Championships where he could be seen writing "No war please" on a camera.
Sforzino Sforza As Swan, 2023
acrylic on polyester
50 x 35 cm / 19.7 x 13.8 in
Sommeil hollywoodien, 2023
acrylic on canvas
50 x 40 cm / 19.7 x 15.7 in
to seize upon greatness, 2020
acrylic on polyester
137 x 102 cm / 53.9 x 40.2 in
Public Exhibitions
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HERE COMES LOVE
2023, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin
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like stars and years, like numerals
2021, Berlin Opticians Gallery, Dublin
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No feeling is final
2019, Live Collision at Project Art Centre, Dublin
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and the tide was way out
2019, dlr Lexicon, Dublin
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Attitude Precedes Form
2017, The Library Project, Dublin
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In the Silence of the Night
2015, IMMA, Dublin
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Shifting in Silence
2023, Rathfarnham Castle
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Sleepwalkers
2013, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
News
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IMAGE Interiors Autumn/Winter 2022
Michelle Hanley highlights Lee Welch as an artist to watch.
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Arts Council
acquire harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! for its Collection
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Ultraviolet Art Talks
with Lee Welch
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192nd RHA Annual Exhibition
Royal Hibernian Academy, 23 May – 24 July
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ROPES
Issue 30 featuring Lee Welch on the cover
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The Stinging Fly
current issue featuring Lee Welch on the cover
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NCAD
Studio Artist 2020-21
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Irish Arts Review Winter 2023
Aidan Dunne considers the group show ‘Shifting in Silence’
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Artist's
News
Irish Times
We are Solitary, an exhibition exploring our need for connectedness at a time of enforced solitude, Rua Red gallery, Dublin. –Read here
TN2 magazine
Interview with some Live Collision artists, Project Arts Centre, Dublin. –Read here
This is Tomorrow
This is Tomorrow contemporary art magazine has published a review by Aidan Kelly Murphy on Paul Hallahan and Lee Welch’s exhibition ‘and the tide was way out’, dlr Lexicon Gallery, Dublin. –Read here
Mousse Magazine
Lee Welch “Two exercises in awareness and observation” at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. –Read here
Books
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Sleepwalkers
PUBLISHER: Ridinghouse
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Amikejo
PUBLISHER: Mousse
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Options with Nostrils
PUBLISHER: Sternberg Press
Lee Welch was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1975 and currently lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. Welch creates gestural, atmospheric paintings that attest to the psychical and emotional depths of his chosen subjects and map out delicate negotiations between beauty, desire, and the painted image. Depicting figures from his own milieu, as well as from history, literature, music, and tennis, Welch finds feeling in that which he depicts, always rendered with the intensity of his particular humanism; a close looking akin to love. In each subject’s specificity, the artist reveals the universal feelings that connect us to each other, and that stretch from our present moment back through time.
Welch received his BFA from the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in 2009 and his MFA from Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam in 2011. He has since been widely exhibited internationally and received numerous awards. Recent exhibitions have taken place at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC), León, Spain; Glucksman Gallery, Cork; Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp and Kerlin Gallery, Dublin. His paintings are in private and public collections such as the Arts Council, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane and the OPW - State Art Collection.