Charles Tyrrell: Staying on-grid with an impressive body of work

The former resident of Beara says the Co Cork peninsula still has a presence in his work 

Charles Tyrrell has a new exhibition in Dublin. 

Charles Tyrrell’s works in his New Paintings exhibition at the Taylor Galleries in Dublin have an unlikely genesis. In 2022, Tyrrell completed what he calls “the biggest outdoor permanent painting in Dublin.” The painting, Liffey Grid, was commissioned by IPUT Real Estate and was executed in vitreous enamel on interlocking steel panels before being installed as the gate entrance to the new Tropical Fruit Warehouse development on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay.

Tyrrell’s initial idea for the project was somewhat different to what he finished up with. “I had been making grid drawings, and I thought one of those would make an absolutely stunning gate,” he says. “But then, within a day or so, I realised that the purpose of the gate was to keep people out, and a design based on my drawings would make the perfect ladder, so that would not have worked at all.”