BIOGRAPHY

Martin Gale was born in Worcester, England in 1949 and moved to Ireland at a very early age. He presently lives and works in Co. Kildare. Gale was educated in Ireland and graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 1973. In 1975, Gale held his first solo-exhibition in the Neptune Gallery in Dublin, and in 1980, he moved to the Taylor Galleries where he has had regular solo shows ever since.

Gale’s practice responds to the contemporary Irish landscape and how people fit within it. Painting in both oils and watercolour he creates a dark commentary on rural life in modern Ireland. His painting style is influenced by twentieth century realism and 1970’s photorealism. The displacement and isolation of the figures he paints within the landscape effectively captures the anxiety surrounding identity and place felt by contemporary Ireland.

In 2004, gale was the subject of a major retrospective, held first in the RHA Gallagher Gallery, and subsequently in the Ulster Museum in Belfast (2005). This was under the auspices of the Nissan Art Project, which took a concentrated review of his work over the previous decade, with a coda added of paintings from the late seventies through the eighties.

Gale has exhibited widely in Ireland, England, Europe and the USA. His work can be found in many public, corporate and private collections. He has been a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy since 1996, where he is presently the Keeper, and a member of Aosdána since its inception.