Smiling angels sit alongside Satan while fragments of the Virgin Mary and horse-drawn chariots are blown up, then cut back down to size again. These are the signature paintings of artist Brigid Conroy on display last week at The Crypt Gallery in Dublin Castle The bright, bold colours of the paintings, part of the "Shapes & Shades - Extractions and Interpretations of 14th to 17th Century Russian Icons" exhibition, are in sharp contrast with the white stone wall background of the Crypt.
This is the second exhibition of the Dublin-born artist's "Shapes & Shades" collection - the first took place last October as part of a larger exhibition for the Wexford Opera Festival. Family, friends and colleagues are out in force to support the budding artist. Her son, Neil Nolan, is here, along with her two brothers, Noel and Rory Conroy, and her sister, Rene, with husband Tommy Murphy.
Brigid Conroy is a multi-talented artist. A nurse by day in a Dublin hospital, this Wexford-based painter was a teacher before going back to college to take Old English and Classical Greek, Studies, she proves fluent in French as she chats away with old friend, Gilberte Schmidlin, and her granddaughter, Madeline, who are over from France for a few days. College friends of the artist's, Imelda Lambe and Kathleen Kennedy, are also here in support.