Ireland, David

American, 1930-2009

BiographyLabeled alternately sculptor, artist, archaeologist, architect, designer, historian, and photographer, David Ireland’s various works all share a common thread: they are derived and often inseparable from everyday life. For his above mixed media images, Ireland traveled to the rugged, uninhabited island of Skellig Michael off the coast of Ireland. His images from this series deliberately create a distance between the viewer and the subject. In one, an expanse of water acts as a barrier to the island, while a painted green rectangle expands the viewer’s visual experience in a less representational sense. In the other, the viewer is distanced not only by the water-speckled glass surface between the foreground and the landscape, but also by the red spots painted on the surface of the photograph. Ireland’s painted geometric shapes add a dynamism to the images that recalls Constructivist art as well as primitive construction-paper forms.

Ireland went on to live in San Francisco and is renowned for his conceptual art and sculpture as well as for his photography. His works have been shown in over forty solo exhibitions and seventy group exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; San Francisco Art Institute; and Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Maine. The recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Ireland’s work is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art; and Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.