Bruach: Joe Dunne RHA

'Bruach', meaning border or brink in Irish, is an exhibition of landscape paintings bringing together responses to two largely peripheral locations in Ireland. As a fellow of the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Joe Dunne has drawn inspiration from the coastline of North Mayo on numerous residencies there. In another favoured fringe locality, he has explored the environs of his suburban home, near the Dublin foothills, which have stimulated a variety of approaches and works over many years. 'Bruach' could perhaps also describe the interstice between his representational and abstracted works. 
Joe Dunne was born in Dublin in 1957 and graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 1978. His paintings have won prizes at the Arnotts National Portrait Awards and the Keating McLaughlin Medal, for a group portrait, at the RHA Annual in 2006. He was awarded 1st prize in the inaugural Davy Portrait Awards in 2008.
Commissions for the Office of Public Works include his portraits of former Taoiseach Eamon de Valera and of President Mary McAleese. His work is included in the collections of AXA Insurance Ltd., The Royal Dublin Society, The Office of Public Works, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, The National University of Ireland at Maynooth, Ballinglen Art Foundation Archive and The National Self-Portrait Collection.
He is a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and held the position of Principal of the RHA School of Drawing from 2011-2014.'