Conor's 'Phaethon' on Cover of 'Poets & Artists'
19/12/2015

Conor Walton was thrilled and honoured to have 'Phaethon' used on the cover of Poets & Artists magazine's '50 Memorable Painters of 2015' special edition, curated by Didi Menendez and John Seed, with his painting 'An Ape's Limbs compared to Man's' featured inside on a double page spread.

The magazine can be viewed online at:
http://www.poetsandartists.com/50-memorable-painters-2015/

A print-on-demand edition can be viewed and bought via http://www.blurb.com/b/6773165-50-memorable-painters-2015

About Poets & Artists:

"We are a multi-interactive publication including print-on-demand. Published from 6 to 8 times a year, we like to place poetry and art together as they should be. We interview art collectors, poets, artists, gallery owners and art dealers to keep our readers in the know. We publish what we love and not what we are paid to publish. We do not advertise. We do not have institutions dictating to us. We feel quality is worth more than quantity. We have guest curators and editors come up themes and submission calls for full issues. In the last few years we have had group shows in Chicago at the Zhou B Art Center and in Florida at Sirona Fine Art. This is an opportunity for some of the artists we feature to show their artwork selected for the show in a gallery setting and in print."

Conor's painting in John Seed's 'best of year' Huffington Post blog.
19/12/2015

John Seed's Huffington Post blog, 'Ten Memorable Paintings from 2015' included Conor Walton's 'An Ape's Limbs Compared to Man's', which was the centerpiece of his 'Enemies of Progress' show at CK Contemporary in San Francisco.

See link below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/ten-memorable-paintings-f_b_8842234.html

Conor's SF Show Reviewed by Artsy
4/12/2015

Conor Walton's solo exhibition 'The Enemies of Progress', was reviewed favourably by Grace-Yvette Gemmell on Artsy.

"Adding an unexpected gravity to kitsch, Irish artist Conor Walton’s still life paintings tap into the Old Master tradition of the vanitas to transform everyday objects, like toys and plastic shopping bags, into powerful (and playful) reminders of our mortality. Invoking Renaissance cabinets of curiosities and studioli, while deploying painterly Old Master techniques, Walton’s oil-on-linen paintings add an element of facetious levity while tapping into traditions of still life and vanitas paintings ... Walton seamlessly blends old and new, rendering Renaissance artifacts together with contemporary objects and settings. Lego Mondrian (2015), for example, shows a skull and a wall of Lego bricks arranged to resemble a Mondrian painting. His handling of paint and use of chiaroscuro harkens back to his Old Master predecessors, but feels decidedly fresh, capturing elusive contrasts like those between transparency and opaqueness. Walton’s visual vignettes seem to satirize the still life tradition even while paying it respect. Regardless, the reference to mortality perseveres. In his version of the vanitas, a garish toy dinosaur and a miniature soldier become commanding harbingers of the effects of globalization; a cluster of tiny Disney princesses and Marvel comic figurines serve as distress signals in the face of acts of terrorism; and a solitary plastic bag of oranges becomes an allusion to impending and inevitable environmental degeneration. It is in this fusion of the sobering and the playful that Walton’s still lifes induce a satisfying visual dissonance, not unlike a memento mori."

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-conor-walton-brings-memento-mori-into-the-20th-century

'Still Life with Judgement XI' exhibited at MEAM Barcelona
19/11/2015

Conor's painting 'Still Life with Judgement XI' was exhibited at MEAM Barcelona as part of the ARC Salon 2015 Traveling Exhibition. the painting was selected with other prize-winning works having won 3rd Prize in the Still Life Category at the ARC Salon.

Exhibited from 19 November - 28 December 2015, it then travels to New York for a show at the Salmagundi Club in January 2016.

"The European Museum of Modern Art, MEAM, exhibits the finest Contemporary Figurative Art. It is owned by TheFoundation of Arts and Artists, and the purpose is to promote and diffuse Figurative Art of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The Foundation’s claim is to find a new contemporary language without denying tradition by progressing into the new Century. Moreover, the Foundation of Arts and Artists, organizes each year the Figurativas Painting and Sculpture Awards, and with the wesbiteFigurativas en Red opens a window with the artworks of the Contemporary Figurative artists . The MEAM is currentlly located at the Gomis Palace, in the middle of the streets of the Born in Barcelona, a neighborhood where culture is always present and reflects the charm of the old part of the city, an area that knew how to mix tradition and modernity, becoming a requiered visit for the tourits interested in the Monumental Barcelona.

The MEAM is different from other Contemporary Art museums because it houses living artists who created Figurative Art. These artworks are hardly seen in other museums, collections or entities, to whom the word Contemporary is identified by experiment and abstraction."

Conor Walton Still Life workshop at NUMU Atelier
15/11/2015

Conor gave a two-day workshop in Still Life Painting in Oils to eight students at the NUMU Atelier in Los Gatos, California.

The atelier is part of the New Museum, Los Gatos, and run by artist Gabriel Coke.

http://www.numulosgatos.org/about-the-atelier/

'The Enemies of Progess' opens in San Francisco
7/11/2015

Conor Walton's 13th solo exhibition of new paintings, 'The Enemies of Progress' opened at CK Contemporary in San Francisco USA to great acclaim, with Conor in attendance.

An online catalogue of the exhibition is available at
http://ckcontemporary.com/index.php?p=news&title=catalog-conor-walton-the-enemies-of-progress

A printed catalogue is also available.

The exhibition will run from November 7 - December 7 2015

Below: gallerist Lauren J Ellis teachess her daughter how to sell paintings

Conor attends TRAC15 as 'Demo Artist' and Guest Speaker
4/11/2015

Conor Walton attended The Representational Art Conference 2015 in Ventura California as an invited 'Demo Artist' and Guest Speaker on a panel discussion; 'Painting the People Around You' moderated by painter, art-historian and blogger John Seed, with Max Ginsburg, F Scott Hess and Cynthia Sitton.

Read F Scott Hess's article on the panel discussion here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/f-scott-hess/art-that-hurts_b_8495768.html

Conor also gave a four-hour still life painting demonstration using a bunch of grapes.

"The Representational Art Conference 2015 (TRAC2015) is the premier international art conference focused on the philosophical underpinnings of representational art in the 21st Century. This year we will explore the roots and principles of representation as they emerge after postmodernity. What are its guiding principles? Are there aesthetic themes that connect works of representational art?

TRAC provides a platform for discussion. It does not aspire to establishing a single monolithic aesthetic for representational art, but to identify commonalities, to help to understand the unique possibilities of representational art, and perhaps provide some illumination about future directions."

Keynote Speakers

Elliot Bostwick Davis, Ph.D., John Moors Cabot Chair Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Richard MacDonald, internationally celebrated sculptor, Monterey, California
Fred Ross, Founder and Chairman, Art Renewal Center, New York
Semir Zeki, Professor of Neuroesthetics, University College London, London, England

Featured Speakers and Panelists

Candice Bohannon, Artist, Northern California
Joseph Bravo, Bravo Fine Art, Fine Arts Consultant and Curator, San Antonio, Texas
Peter Frank, Art Critic, Curator, and Poet
Max Ginsburg, Artist and Illustrator, New York, New York
F. Scott Hess, Artist and Educator, Los Angeles, California
Julio Reyes, Artist, Northern California
Alexey Steele, Artist, Los Angeles, California
Ruth Weisberg, Artist and Educator, Los Angeles, California

Studio Demonstrations

Max Ginsburg, oil painting, New York, New York
David Jon Kassan, charcoal drawing, Brooklyn, New York
Nan Liu, Chinese brush painting, Florida
Jeremy Lipking, oil painting, Los Angeles, California
Alicia Nicole Ponzio, sculpture, San Francisco, California
Tony Pro, oil painting, Los Angeles, California
Mario Andres Robinson, oil painting, New Jersey
Conor Walton, oil painting, Wicklow, Ireland
Lea Colie Wight, oil painting, New Jersey

Conor's portrait featured at state funeral of Thomas Kent
18/09/2015

Conor's posthumous portrait of Thomas Kent (1865-1916) received quite a bit of attention at his state funeral two days ago (99 years after he was executed in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising). His remains were recently exhumed from a shallow grave in what used to be Cork Prison, and now rest with his family in the graveyard of his home town, Castlelyons.

Kildare Portrait artist of the Year 2015
18/09/2015

'Kildare Portrait artist of the Year 2015' took place in Naas Town Hall on Culture Night, September 18th. The sitters were Dick Warner, writer and environmentalist, and Áine Lawlor, RTE presenter.

Conor Walton was one of the judges, along with Lucina Russell (Kildare Arts Officer) and artist Alison Hurst.

The prize was €1000 with €300 for Sitter's choices.

Judith Henigan was the winner with her painting of Dick Warner.

Sitters choice, Áine's was split: William Nathans and Claire Malone
Dick: Stephen O'Raw

The whole event was organised impressively by Sharon Fidgeon, who hopes to run it as an annual event.

Judith Henigan with her prize winning portrait of Dick Warner

'Burning' exhibited at RHA Annual Exhibition
24/05/2015

Conor was an invited artist at this years Royal Hibernian Academy Annual Exhibition and exhibited his recently completed painting 'Burning' (oil on linen, 48 x 48 inches).

'Still Life with Judgement XI' wins 3rd Prize for Still Life at ARC Salon 2015 19/05/2015

Conor's prizewinning painting will feature in exhibitions at MEAM in Barcelona and the Salmagundi Club in New York along with a selection of prize-winning work from this year's ARC Salon.

'La Figure Humaine' opens in Paris
9/4/2015

Conor Walton's exhibition of drawings, 'La Figure Humaine' was formally opened by her Excellency Geraldine Byrne-Nason, Ambassador or Ireland to France, at Galerie L'Oeil du Prince in Paris.

Right: Amanda Bane (Second Secretary and Cultural Attachée), Ambassador Byrne-Nason, and Conor Walton at the opening of his exhibition in Paris.

https://youtu.be/N86tVkLZZKA