Lot 95 Manar Al Shouha TIGH KRUGER, DN CHAOIN, 2024

Manar Al Shouha, Contemporary

OMOS DO CHEOIL TRADISIUNTA (HONOURING TRADITIONAL MUSIC) Krugers Bar, Dunquin Oil, charcoal and pastel on canvas, 39 1/4" x 59" (100 x 150cm), signed and dated 2024; signed, inscribed and dated verso.

Manar Al Shouha is a young Syrian painter who came to Ireland from Damascus three years ago. In that short time she has shared joint exhibitions at Rathfarnham Castle and the Cashel Arts Festival,shown at the High Lane's Gallery in Drogheda and in the RHA open exhibition in 2023 and 2024. She was awarded the Contemporary Irish Art Society's award for an Emerging Artist and was nominated for the 2024 Hennessy Craig Portrait prize.

Since coming to Ireland, she has widened her subject matter to reflect the atmosphere of Irish pubs and Georgian architecture and is at her best when presenting sharply observed social interactions, such as in this case at a session in Krugers bar, near Dingle or an exchange of confidences in a Dublin bar, each painted in distinctive, confident sweeping brushstrokes and lines that pulsate with nervous energy. Despite the challenges she has overcome in a war zone and as a refugee in Ireland, she paints to celebrate the positive and does so with wit and humour, part of her deep humanity.