Kerlin Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by one of Ireland's most critically acclaimed abstract painters, Felim Egan.

Felim Egan began exhibiting in the late 1970's and is best known as a painter of restrained eloquence who sparingly deploys his vocabulary of hieroglyphic motifs over monochromatic expanses of colour. A master of abstract formalism, Egan's work has nevertheless always been influenced by the landscape, in particular by the striking characteristics of his home patch, Sandymount Strand, Dublin.

Along with the flat empty spaces of the 'Strand', the new work looks above the horizon to the infinite space of the sky and beyond. The straight thin line making horizontal connections across the work has now become an arc, connecting elements across the surface of the canvas in a new multi-directional manner. In many ways, looking at the earth from a great distance, while retaining a close-up focus on even the tiniest grains of sand.

This mapping process is reminiscent of the mapping of the stars, making sense of and trying to establish an order from what is essentially discordant. The new work is also more engaged in light, exploring different times of the day and night. Dark paintings with light coming through from underneath the surface and light works emerging from blacks.

Major solo exhibitions of Egan's work include the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin in 1995/6 and at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in 1999. He has participated in exhibitions at the Sao Paolo Biennale 1985, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, the New Art Gallery, Walsall, 'L'Imaginaire Irlandais', Paris and Holstebro Kunstmuseum, Denmark. Large-scale commissions include works for Dublin Castle and the National Gallery of Ireland. He is represented in numerous collections, both public and private, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the New York City Public Library, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin, Deutsche Bank, London, Fritz-Winter-Haus, Moderne Kunst, Ahlen, Germany, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the European Parliament.