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

92 77 John Shinnors (b.1950) St. John’s Night, Carraroe, Inishmor signed lower right and titled on reverse oil on canvas on panel 108 x 143cm (42.5 x 56.3in) Provenance: Private Collection €17,500-€25,000 (£15,625-£22,321) Limerick artist John Shinnors is justly celebrated for his inven- tive pictorial puzzles based on the most ordinary subject mat- ter: mackerel laid out in the fishmongers counter, washing flap- ping on the clothes-line, Fresian cattle in a field, scarecrows, badgers, Loop Head lighthouse. Many of his chosen motifs share a monochrome, black-and-white palette. He prefers that colour, when he uses it, makes a point. It certainly does so in St. John’s Night, Carraroe, Inishmor, which richly displays his expertise with shades of black and white and volcanic bursts of colour, and another trademark quality: an air of mystery and magic. St John’s Eve, usually coincident with the Summer Sol- stice, is traditionally celebrated by communal bonfires, beacons in the night. Here, John Shinnors counterpoints the intense glow of the flames with a stark, elemental terrain, the bonfire in Carraroe with the forbidding sea-bound fortress of Inish MÛr nearby. The dark shelf of the island’s formidable cliffs juts out into the Atlantic waters, phosphorescent in the half-light of midsummer darkness. Midsummer mirrors midwinter in a fine example of pictorial drama. Aidan Dunne, October 2018.