John Kingerlee is no ordinary painter

Beara is currently paying tribute to John Kingerlee, perhaps the greatest of the

THE title of a retrospective exhibition of the work of leading West Cork-based artist, John Kingerlee, is taken from Seamus Heaney’s admiring description of the English artist’s paintings. ‘Beyond the Beyonds’ at Beara Community School, Castletownbere, taking place as part of the Beara Arts Festival, features over 160 works from 1962 to the present.

Conceived by art collector Larry Powell, who is Kingerlee’s patron, and curated by Beara Arts Festival director, Marc O’Sullivan Vallig, the exhibition traces Kingerlee’s early figurative art to today’s abstract expressionist work. Powell says that Heaney became a champion of Kingerlee. The late Nobel Laureate was “flabbergasted” when he first saw his work. Among the painter’s other creative fans are the likes of U2’s Larry Mullen and the writer, Brian Lynch.