Mike Absalom

www.mikeabsalom.com

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Mike Absalom is an Irish painter and printmaker. He was born in England and educated and brought up both there and in Canada and Sweden. His family roots are in Wales and County Clare. He has lived and worked in many parts of the world including Europe, Canada, Iran, Paraguay.

In the early seventies Mike delighted highly amused crowds with his madcap satirical road shows and performances of songs from his legendary LPs "Hector and other Peccadillos" and "Mike Absalom".

After 25 years spent in Canada and Paraguay as broadcaster, children’s entertainer, puppeteer, harpist, fiddler, Celtic band leader and poet Mike toured the United Kingdom in 2002, sold up in the New World and returned to reconnect with his Welsh and Irish roots on this side of the Atlantic.

During the past five years his paintings, linocuts and dry point etchings have been exhibited widely in Wales, England, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and China.

Mike is an accomplished and disturbing figurative painter, but is best known for his haunting Mayo landscapes and his challenging architectural studies of streets and villages in Yorkshire, South Wales and the West of Ireland. His work has been purchased by public bodies as varied as Westport Town Council and Ireland's Office of Public Works.

In his partly abstracted acrylic landscapes and his off balance treatment of perspective in townscape and architecture movement and change are central themes as they have been in his own eclectic life. His human subjects, mythic or stereotypical, are constantly in motion. If they appear still then their environment often moves around them.

In these paintings buildings can come alive while people are often little more than blocks and stones and senseless things. He calls it Mayo Expressionism. Mike Absalom now lives in County Mayo where he has his studio and print workshop.

Event:  Mike Absalom – “Me Dream’s Out!” (A Liverpool Irish Mirage) - 23.10.2008 - 27.11.2008