Melita Denaro Irish, b. 1950

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

In 2023, fourteen works by Melita Denaro sold in Robert Kime: The Personal Collection sale at Drewatts Auctioneers
Selected Available Works
Past Exhibitions
- Exhibitions
  Sun & Moon
  A Group Exhibition at Spirit Studios Suffolk 3 June - 15 July 2023
  An exhibition about the extraordinary dramatic power of sunlight and moonlight. For artists, these can be the most fleeting and transformational of encounters, momentary, magical alignments forever fixed within a...
- Exhibitions
  In His Sheltering Presence
  Melita Denaro 20 March - 19 April 2019
  Looking at a painting by Melita Denaro in a previous exhibition of her work in Dublin, a woman asked me “Where is the cow?”. Referring to the list of works...
Overview
Share

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email
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.

Join Our Guestlist
Biography
Share

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email
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
1994 Oliver Swan Gallery London

1994 The Gorden Gallery Derry

1992 Oliver Swan Gallery London

1992 The Gorden Gallery Derry

1990 The 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
1995-1997: Contemporary Art Society,Royal Festival Hall
1995-1997: The 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.