Irish Academy of Figurative Art

First Annual Exhibition 2006

Press release May 30, 2006:

The Irish Academy of Figurative Art has been running programmes in figurative drawing, sculpting, painting and anatomy over the last year and will celebrate its first birthday by exhibiting the work of friends, faculty and students from Friday June 23rd to Sunday June 25th 2006 at 8 Walkers Cottages, Ranelagh D6. All are welcome to the opening night on June 23rd at 8pm. For further details please view our web page at www.iaofa.com or call Dony at 0872681041.

The academy was founded one year ago by the Dublin born artist Dony Mac Manus as a vehicle in which to equip a new generation of Irish artists in the vocabulary of figurative art. Mac Manus graduated with a Masters (Sculpture) from the New York Academy of Art in 2001 and shortly after 9/11 moved to Rome and Florence to work on sculpture commissions for the following three years. Since his return to Ireland two years ago he has been helping artists who value figurative art skills, by passing on what he has learnt from the art academies in the US and Italy. Two other graduates from the NYAA are also faculty at the Academy and they are Donal Murray MFA (Painting) and Conall McCabe MFA (Drawing). With this faculty, the Academy has been designed to teach a full academic figurative curriculum without having to leave the country.

The first summer programme was booked out within days with over fifty students, which illustrates the need for this type of training. Most of the current students have been attending on a continual basis since the academy began which further illustrated the satisfaction of the students in their gradual artistic development. It is important to note that the academic curriculum is designed to equip the student with the necessary visual language to express what they want to say so that it is a means and not an end in itself.

To put this Academy in a historical context one could say that it aims to reclaim the figurative artistic skills which have been in decline in Ireland since the 1930’s when Oliver Shepard and William Orpen were teaching at the Metropolitan (now the NCAD).

ENDS.