Roger O'Reilly - Estuary II. Oil on Canvas 70cm x 70cm

The 35th annual Kilkenny Arts Festival 2007 was a huge success Ground-breaking theatre, music, literature, visual art, children’s events and outdoor performances abounded, with record crowds attending over 100 events, featuring almost 300 international, Irish and local artists, in venues all over Kilkenny City and County, over the festival’s 10 days and nights.
On exhibit at the Blackbird Gallery were Roger O'Reilly's new collection of paintings, the "Estuary" series. In nine large and medium sized canvasses, O'Reilly work are depicted in abstract oils over solid descriptive line and evoke narratives of gradual and sometimes unexpected topographical change. Influenced by childhood memories of the ever-changing mudflats of the Boyne estuary and the tragedies at Morecambe Bay, the work deals with ebb and flow, the revealed and the hidden.