In Curated by Rain, Eamon Colman extends a lifelong engagement with landscape, observation, and the lived experience of nature into a body of work shaped by immersion, duration, and chance. Developed following his 2025 artist residency at Mount Congreve Gardens, the exhibition emerges from sustained encounters with one of Ireland’s most celebrated horticultural envi- ronments, a place where cultivated order and natural unpredictability exist in constant dialogue.
Colman’s practice has long resisted spectacle in favour of attention. Like his recent exhibition One at the Tea House in Kilkenny, these works arise from prolonged looking: sitting, noticing, waiting, and returning.
The paintings carry the atmosphere of repeated visits through changing weather and seasons, where colour, texture, natural forms, smell, and shifting light accumulate slowly
into visual thought. During the residency, Colman created sketches, photographs, notes, and gathered plant material directly from the gar- dens, translating these experiences into paintings that move between observation and memory, structure and intuition.
The exhibition’s title originates from necessity, when, during the installation of several paintings in Mount Congreve’s charming derelict Peach House, ‘the frequent showers of rain became an integral element of the curation due to the numer- ous leaks in the roof. The artwork was placed safely in the dry areas - curated by rain.’ What began as a practical necessity evolved into a central metaphor within Colman’s thinking. In this accidental choreog- raphy, weather assumed authorship. From this moment, Curated by Rain expands outward into a wider reflection on human behaviour and vulnerability. Rain determines movement: whether we venture out- side, what we wear, where we gather, and what we avoid. Increasingly, climate and extreme weather shape not only individual routines but collective futures. Floods, environmental instability, and climate change now alter landscapes and lives on a global scale. Colman suggests that, in different ways, all of us are becoming curated by the weather.
Yet these paintings are not didactic. Rather, they remain rooted in close observation and sensory experience. The garden becomes both subject and thinking space, a site where beauty, fragility, growth, and uncertainty coexist. Colman’s immersion in Mount Congreve
Gardens deepens his longstand- ing research into the relationship between culture and ecology, while reaffirming painting itself as an act of sustained attention in an acceler- ated world. Ultimately, Curated by Rain is less about depicting the gar- dens than about inhabiting them - and recognising how deeply human life remains entangled with forces beyond our control.
Biography
Eamon Colman was born in Dublin in 1957 and has lived and worked in County Kilkenny since 2003. He has been an elected member of Aosdána since 2007 in recognition of his major contribution to Irish culture. His professional career spans from 1979, during which he has created forty-five solo exhibitions presented nationally and internationally. In 1997, he was invited to host a major mid-term retrospective exhibition of his work entitled ‘Post Cards Home’ at the Royal Hiber- nian Academy, Dublin, at the age of 39. This was accompanied by a monograph on his work by writer and art critic Brian McAvera entitled ‘Dreams from The Lion’s Head, The Work of Eamon Colman’, published by Four Fields Press. A 25-year retrospective of his work is featured in a substantial publication by Gandon Editions, Kinsale: ‘Profile 25 – Eamon Colman’ (2006). In 1989, he won the First Prize Painting Award in EVA International; in 2001 First Prize Painting Award in Eigse, Carlow Arts Festival; in 2002, he was the first Irish artist to be awarded Full Fellowship Award from the Vermont Studio Centre, USA; in 2005, he won a CCAT Interreg Major Award for touring an exhibition in Wales, UK and in 2018 he was awarded a Culture Ireland GB18 Award. In 2023, he was invited to exhibit ‘28-Acres’ at The Butler Gallery and Museum, Kilkenny, which was accompanied by a new film by Kevin Hughes, Wallslough Studios, about the artist and his local environment, where he finds inspiration.
His work has been featured in many international exhibitions showcasing contemporary Irish art, such as ‘Woven Fine Grain’ at Sasse Museum, Los Angeles, USA, curated by Ciara Hambly (2023), ‘Ground Zero 360’, BUH Museum, Texas, USA (2021). He has also exhibited in Brussels; Denmark; France; Spain; the UK; The Netherlands; Hong Kong; Canada, and the USA. Colman’s work is held in numer- ous prominent public collections including The National Gallery of Ireland; The Arts Council of Ireland; The Danish Arts Council; The Of- fice of Public Works - Government Collection; The Irish Museum of Modern Art (Gordon Lambert Collection); Butler Gallery and Museum; Tralee Regional Technical College; Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast; AIB Bank; Bank of Ireland; Ulster Bank; KPMG; Smurfit Ireland Grp.; Citibank; Deutsche Bank; Ar- thur Anderson; Fyffes Ireland; Delta Airlines; De Vere’s private collec- tion and various private collections worldwide.
Solomon Fine Art, Dublin, Ireland, represents Eamon Colman. www. eamoncolman.com
