Artist lies low as storm rages

THE artist behind the nude paintings of Brian Cowen was lying low yesterday as controversy over his work and the Government’s outraged reaction to it deepened.

Amateur painter Conor Casby works for the Department of Education, running a School Completion Programme in 10 primary and secondary schools in Dublin’s north inner city, where his job is to support pupils at risk of becoming early school-leavers to keep at their studies.

Mr Casby did not reply to messages left on his mobile phone yesterday and at the school where the programme has a central office — Mount Carmel Secondary School at Kings Inn Street in Dublin — principal Gerard Cullen said Mr Casby had taken “a personal day”.

“I can take messages for him but I can’t do more than that, I’m afraid, because really all this has nothing to do with the school,” Mr Cullen said.

Mr Casby, who is in his late 30s, is very involved in community work and has helped run a schools cultural mediation service to help non-Irish pupils and their parents get over language and cultural barriers to education.

He has also served in a voluntary capacity with the North West Inner City Network, an umbrella for local community and voluntary groups working in the areas of social exclusion and marginalisation, and he has helped draw up proposals for community access to the planned new Dublin Institute of Technology campus at Grangegorman.

Teaching unions were vocal in protesting against funding cuts in the School Completion Programme last year but it is not known if Mr Casby intended his caricatures of Mr Cowen as a serious political commentary on the Government’s record.

When copies of his paintings were originally emailed to the Today FM radio station earlier this year, they were accompanied by the message “To add to the gaiety of the nation.”

It is understood he attended Pearse Street Garda Station voluntarily yesterday to explain his role in the affair but that at no stage was he under arrest.

Gardaí are investigating whether the display of the paintings involved offences such as indecency, incitement to hatred or criminal damage.