Celebrating Beauty in Science and Nature
Exhibits by Colman Casey, Robert Fourie and Carl Vaughan
Colman Casey
Colman (PhD Microbiology and UCC graduate) has spent most of his working life in the Food and Pharmaceutical industry and is currently the Administrative Director for Research and Industrial Liaison at the College of Medicine and Health in UCC. Colman is married to Ailín and they have two children, Fionnuala and Eoghan.
Robert Fourie
Dr. Robert Fourie is a South African artist who has lived in Ireland for 15 years. He works as a Lecturer in Speech and Hearing Sciences at UCC and is registered blind. His medium is electronic art and he uses a radio pen and pad attached to a computer with a very bright screen to engage in art as a pastime. He believes that beauty is a value upon which principles for living can be founded. The truth is always beautiful.
Carl Vaughan
Carl is a Consultant cardiologist at the Mercy Hospital Cork and has exhibited at the Jennings Gallery on a number of occasions. Carl graduated from University College Cork in 1989 and trained in medicine and cardiology in Cork before immigrating to New York in 1996 where he did a fellowship in Cardiology. Carl returned to Cork in 2004. He is married to Fiona and they have three children, Cliona, Sophie and Charlie.
1. Cormorant inFlight
2. Plovers and Sanderlings inFlight
Colman Casey
Nature in all its beauty is captivating. Having a spouse with a deep interest in nature makes it fun to find the place, wait for the opportunity and seize the moment. Finding the place involves energy and effort, waiting for the opportunity requires know-how and knowledge and seizing the moment requires patience and preparation. Finding an artist with such rich diversity and talent literally completes the picture.
In Flight
This is a collaborative triptych between an Irish photographer and a South African artist. The photographs were taken in Fionntrá, West Kerry by Colman Casey on a rather bleak New Year’s Day 2014. These were then interpreted by the artist, Robert Fourie, on a marginally warmer February day in 2014. Nature offers us beautiful opportunities and our interpretations, when synchronous, can offer a little more to the beholder. Nature transcends cultures and continents.
Perception
When walking on the beach a significant percentage of the population may not notice these birds in flight.
A smaller percentage may notice the movement.
An even smaller percentage will know what they are.
A very small percentage will investigate closely.
A tiny percentage will record their movement.
Another tiny percentage will see absolutely nothing due to visual impairment.
This artist can’t see them but from frozen moments in time he can bring us back there and we can now all notice them in flight.
Our different perceptions make this a beautiful world.
1. Lillies
2. Crab
Carl Vaughan
Carl’s interest in painting began as a teenager and he came second place and subsequently first place in the Texaco Children’s National Art Competition in 1978 and 1979 respectively. Carl is largely self-taught and paints in both oils and acrylics. His favourite locations are West Cork, Kerry and Donegal. Carl’s early works were largely representational landscapes. Now his subjects include landscape, seascape, fishing boats, and scenes of Cork. Carl’s style has evolved over recent years towards a less representational more impressionist one and recent works are conspicuously more vivid than in his early work. Carl also has an interest in portrait painting and has painted a number of works of his children.
For me, painting is taking something potentially commonplace, a fish, a boat, or a street, and changing its visual personality with added colour and contrast. There is no ‘hidden meaning’ in my paintings, they represent a celebration of our beautiful and often overlooked surroundings - the colours of the world.
