'In old age you get more fearless': Artist John Kingerlee at 90

The West Cork-based artist is in the midst of his latest exhibition and is still painting

Tue, 27 Oct, 2026 - 21:30

Marc O’Sullivan Vallig

John Kingerlee is not entirely sure whether his latest exhibition, at the Trinity Gallery in Dublin, is his 100th. “But it must be close at this stage,” he says.

Entitled Kingerlee At 90, the exhibition celebrates his standing as an elder statesman of Irish art. He had his first solo exhibition in London in 1962, aged 26, and has been remarkably productive ever since. Small wonder, then, that he has lost count of the exhibitions there have been in the meantime.

These days, Kingerlee and his wife Mo live in Skibbereen, and though they are both still active, neither felt up for the journey to Dublin for the exhibition opening. Their family was well represented, however; their daughter flew in from Dorset with her husband, son and granddaughter, and two more granddaughters travelled from their homes around Ireland.

“And a guy from America flew over especially,” says the artist. “He collects Warhols and Kingerlees. What about that, eh?”

Kingerlee was born in Birmingham, UK. His family were working class, and his childhood was marked by the frugality associated with World War II and its aftermath. His Aunty Rosie worked as a servant for the prime minister, Winston Churchill, and seems to have got on better with his wife Clementine than she did with the great man himself.

“One time she ran his bath, and the water was too hot. When he jumped in, he got scalded. He started swearing and carrying on at Aunty Rosie. But then his wife came in and smacked his bare arse and said, ‘Don't you dare talk to my Rosie like that!’"

As a young man, Kingerlee lived in London for a time, working as a labourer. When he met Mo, they settled in Cornwall, where they ran a pottery business and reared their five children. He has Irish ancestry on his mother’s side, which partly explains why they moved over in 1982, though they were also drawn to the elemental wildness of West Cork. They settled on the Beara peninsula, where they remained until the move to Skibbereen in 2014.

An old picture of John Kingerlee in his studio in West Cork.

Kingerlee has a long association with Morocco, which he used to visit every winter until recent years. “When I went there first,” he says, “I found I was amongst happy, contented people. And it was basically because they were relating to God first, and not to their Mum and Dad, or even to each other. They were getting their instruction from God, and that was just so wonderful. The more time I spent in Morocco, the more it felt like Europe was so hung up, and incapable of delivering happiness.”

He and Mo eventually converted to Islam. “I know no better guidance,” he says. “It enables you to retain your humanity.”

Many of the paintings in Kingerlee’s new exhibition are of human heads. All are anonymous, as his religion forbids him from painting people’s likenesses.

“And why would you anyway?” he says. “You can do that with a camera.”

His art has become more and more abstract over the years, he says. “If I went out and started painting landscapes now, I'd only use the landscape to arrive at an abstract picture. I think it’s something to do with television, but I don’t like flat surfaces in my paintings, what’s important now is texture.”

His paintings are built up with layers and layers of paint, a process that can sometimes take years. “Sometimes I put sand in it, but mostly it’s just pigment on top of pigment. I mix my own paints. Partly, it’s to avoid spending a fortune on tubes of paint. But when you mix the paint yourself, you get a different texture, and you can mix up all these wonderful colours.”

Kingerlee’s career has had its ups and down, but it seems fair to observe that there have been more ups since 2005, when he was championed by Larry Powell, a businessman and collector from Warrenpoint, Co Down. For years, Powell acted as his patron, organising touring exhibitions of his work across the United States and China. He also commissioned a film, Beyond the Beyonds, and a number of books on Kingerlee’s work. The most recent, Heads, was written by the Northern Irish art historian and curator Jonathan Benington, and has been published to coincide with the Trinity Gallery exhibition.

Kingerlee’s admirers have also included the late Séamus Heaney, who coined the title Beyond the Beyonds for his film, and Dr Michael Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin and Glendalough, who was the guest speaker at the opening of Kingerlee At 90.

Kingerlee continues to work every day, producing collages, drawings and works in mixed media along with his paintings. “It keeps me happy,” he says, “and it makes me feel as though I am playing an acceptable role in the universe, in the eyes of God.”

He sometimes marvels at how far he has come in life. He has no dread of death, and he intends making art as long as he has the physical ability to do so. “The nice thing about old age is you get more and more fearless,” he says. “You don't mind making a fool of yourself. You know you're a bloody fool anyway. It’s very liberating.”