Oliver Sears Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Locus, an exhibition of eight new paintings by Dublin born artist David Eager Maher, his debut at the gallery.

While ‘locus’ is a term used in physics and medicine, its English derivatives ‘location’ and ‘locale’ strike more purposefully at the heart of Eager Maher’s motives. Technically complex, each painting is constructed using imagery taken from art historical references, real places and imagined landscapes. The environment the artist creates is empty of human figures, although the buildings and interior views imply human interaction in the past. Lush foliage permeates the compositions, a living metaphor for the end of colonialism as the jungle literally swallows up the conquistadors driven to tame it.

But ‘Locus’ also represents autobiography. The quiet within each frame reflects the artist’s self imposed isolation where, by confining himself to a small focused existence, he can attempt to understand the history of a much bigger world; One where realism is not about real things but how things are really. ‘Locus’ is the work of a 19th century explorer living in 21st century Wicklow.