Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 30th April 2018 at 6pm

58 John Shinnors (b. ) sT. John’s nighT, CArrAroe, inishMor signed lower right and titled on reverse oil on canvas on panel 108 x 143cm (42.52 x 56.30in) Provenance: Private Collection €15,000-20,000 (£13,043-17,391) Limerick artist John Shinnors is justly celebrated for his inventive pictorial puzzles based on the most ordinary subject matter: mackerel laid out in the fishmongers counter, washing flapping 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 Solstice, 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 Mór 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, March 2018.