Conor Harrington

Overview

Harrington is known for both his street work and also more recently his gallery work. He has taken in the notion that with his outdoors work, the bigger the piece or mural, the bigger the impact and better influence on the viewer looking at it. He considers himself as neither a street artist or gallery artist and more of just a painter. His work is a mixture of classical and contemporary art, blending the two together into a new and inventive way of art.

Early life

Conor Harrington was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1980. He started his career in his teenage years tagging and doing graffiti anywhere he could in the streets of Ireland. Most of these nights were called hip-hop nights, where he would hang out with the DJs and MCs from around the country at clubs in 1990s Ireland.

Career

Conor Harrington attended Limerick School of Art and Design and graduated in 2002 with his Bachelors of Fine Arts. His career picked up reasonably fast after graduation and his years of street art and graffiti. His larger than life paintings on the sides of buildings became increasingly popular as he brought his inspiration from old masters and incorporated them into his pieces. Harrington also started getting into creating gallery art along with his murals that he would create in cities. Harrington uses realistic images of people and combines them with abstract elements that incorporate a meaning and story that relate to the events unfolding at the time. His pieces have been called dreamlike with the balance between the senses and then the realism of the figures in the piece. Harrington's use of soft lines of the human body against the harsh hard lines of the abstract shape also gives a juxtaposition and understanding that it is a more modern piece than one would think. His understanding and use of combining the old and the new in his pieces to create a harmony to which the viewer can perceive is one of the things that sets Harrington's work apart.

Harrington's 2008 Weekend Warriors Exhibition was the first time he used historical signifiers and costumes in his work to portray and reflect on current affairs in society.

In 2013, Harrington participated in the Dulwich Outdoor Gallery project, initiated by Ingrid Beazley of Dulwich Picture Gallery. He is internationally recognised. He started as a graffiti artist and now paints outdoor murals. He has a studio in East London. Harrington also produced more traditional artworks for galleries, but his work straddles classical and contemporary art.

Exhibitions

Conor Harrington's exhibitions have included the following.