Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 12th November 2018

66 54 Gwen O’Dowd (b.1957) Cladach Series (2005) signed, titled and dated 2005 on reverse oil on canvas 149.5 x 119.5cm (59 x 47in) Provenance: Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin (label verso); Private Collection €2,000-€3,000 (£1,785-£2,678) Gwen O’Dowd’s textural, architectonic compositions usually hinge on the interaction of sea and land or, to be more specific, tide and rock. The relentless energy of the tides wears down the shore, finds and infiltrates faults and fissures, carves out hollows and channels. The energies involved can be explosive, as in several images in her Cladach (Seashore) series, as waves erupt through openings in hidden sea caverns. Her work has been read metaphorically, for example as alluding to the human life cycle, but O’Dowd never spells out any desired line of interpretation, preferring to let her paintings and prints - she is also an outstanding printmaker - speak for themselves.