Melita Denaro
Whether Melita Denaro is watching a squally cloud, filled with water, change colour as it joins the sea; or a sunbeam illuminating a golden cow in a green corner of a meadow, she brings to her paintings a spiritual intensity that one has seen in the translucent Scapa Flow sunsets of Turner or when a kneeling woman is transformed into the Queen of Heaven by a Tiepolo shaft of sunlight. Always we are given a personal, passionate and thrilling vision of the sublime fusion that takes place in every moment when Heaven meets and then transforms the earth.
Robert Kime
For the last 25 years Melita Denaro has made a monthly pilgrimage from her Hackney studio to the Isle of Doagh, a peninsula of Inishowen in Co. Donegal. It is here that Melita spends her days painting the wild landscape that surrounds her, weathering whatever conditions the Atlantic Ocean chooses to throw at her. Immersed in the landscape of Inishowen and its wild, changeable weather, Denaro’s paintings do not simply record a moment, of time but have become a trigger for other memories of a childhood growing up on the Isle of Doagh, Those memories make their way into the titles of each painting: the islanders, their conversations, stories and occupations have become an inseparable part of Denaro’s work.
Denaro was trained at Central School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. She has shown regularly with the John Martin Gallery since 2002.
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Late Summer Rose from the Isle, 2021Click to view more -
Surging with enchantment, yet made quiet by it, 2021Click to view more
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Broccoli by Post from June (Memories of Drenagh, Co Derry), 2020Click to view more
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Katie Heath's Narcissi from the Isle, March 2020, 2020Click to view more
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Snowdrops from the Isle, A young fox walked right up to my bedside, March 2020, 2020Click to view more
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The miracle of hearing my blood vessels of the neck working on an ultra-sound, so perfect like whales calling each other (Christmas Roses flowering so sweetly by the dog's graves), 2020Click to view more
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Remembering what they did for us & Great uncle Arthur VC who took me for fabulous lunches at the Savoy , 2018Click to view more
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Up the Grinan behind the house I found grief and inspiration for new work, 2016Click to view more
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Paddy coming up the whole length of the Brae field, like a white arrow throug, 2014Click to view more
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Anna helping me and keeping the cows from strag, 2012Click to view more
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Epiphany Evening 2006Click to view more
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Hellebores in my Kitchen Ming BowlClick to view more
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Mary the Curate saying 'would you like a nice fresh silce of raisin bread?'Click to view more
With another’s brush this could be picturesque, but by introducing herself as the fifth element of the landscape, her pictures become intense representations of her own daily experiences. The level of intensity of these, cause the pictures to soar above a mere pictorial diary so that they indeed describe the sublime.
Solo Exhibitions
2019 In His Sheltering Presence, John Martin Gallery, London
2016 Caught in the Moonlight, John Martin Gallery, London
2014 Whatever One Longs for, Is, John Martin Gallery, London
2011 The Tenderness of Attention, John Martin Gallery, London
2008 The Glad Earth, John Martin Gallery, London
2004 A Field We Knew Together, John Martin Gallery, London
2003 Melita Denaro at London Art Fair, John Martin Gallery, London
2003 ‘New Paintings from the Isle of Doagh’, Taylor Galleries, Dublin
2002 Melita Denaro 2002, John Martin Gallery, London
2000 Glebe Gallery, Donegal
1998 Paintings of Donegal Kelly Ross at the Ko Raw Gallery
1997 Gallery Dublin showing with Jack B. Yeats
1992,94 Oliver Swan Gallery London
1990,92,94The Gorden Gallery Derry
Group Exhbitions
2023: Sun&Moon Exhibition, Spirit Studios, John Martin Gallery
2007 York: Contemporary Irish Painting, Lalique New York, John Martin Gallery
2006 Irish Landscape and Mark Swords, John Martin Gallery
2006 New Year Exhibition, John Martin Gallery
2005 Summer Exhibition, John Martin Gallery
2003 Melita Denaro, London Art Fair, John Martin Gallery
1999 Painters from Ireland, John Martin of London
1997 British & Contemporary Painting, Kelly Ross at the Clink Wharf Gallery
1996-98 Waterman,London
1996-98 Art,Connaught Brown London
1996 Whitechapel Open
1996 Beginnings Offer Waterman London
1996 Person Show Adam Gallery Bath
1996 Blue Gallery London
1996 Soloman Gallery, Dublin
1995-98 Art Fair, Royal College of Art
1995-1997Contemporary Art Society,Royal Festival Hall
1995-1997The Discerning Eye,The Mall Galleries
1992-97 Royal Hiberian Academy, Dublin
1990-97 Royal Academy Summer Show
1994-96 Sligo Art Gallery
1994 a Mark The Mall Galleries
1993-97 Hunting Observer Art Prize
1992-94 Guardian Art for Sale
Awards
1994 The Armitage Prize
1994 The David Murray Travelling Scholarship
1995 The Creswick Prize
1995 The Royal Academy Silver Medal
Education
1975-78 Central School of Art BA (Hons) Ceramics
1992-95 Royal Academy Schools Post Graduate Diploma in Painting
Collections
Irish State Dublin, The Ulster Museum, Guinness Dublin; Guinness London; Allied Irish Bank Dublin; Hambros Bank London; Oprah Winfrey Chicago; `Blur’; Donegal County Council; H.R.H The Prince of Wales.