Verner Finlay | Irish Artist

In 1993 Verner staged his frist solo exhibition in a local hotel and began painting full time. He was awarded a L.E.D.U. Artrepreneur award in 1995 and since then has not looked back. Over the past years Verner's reputation as a successful artist has grown, he has had a number of sell out exhibitions and has steadily increased in popularity among critics and collectors.

He travels on his motobike North and South of Ireland to photograph the landscape for his painting's, returning to spend many hour's in his studio working on them in his unique way. A traditional landscape painter with a modern twist, Verner has created a style that can truly be called his own. The scenes are built up in layers, first painted with brushs then reworked with a flat plastic card this process is used through each painting whether landscape or still life, creating a balance between colour, line and structure.

Daphne McGuigan.

Recently I spent an evening in Verner's studio, the attention to detail within the landscape, which I knew from Verner's older work, had not disappeared but had been transferred to an interest in the effects of light and colour within the landscape itself. The majority of the paintings seem to concentrate on space and scale, on areas of light falling on the land, on objects and reflecting on water, the painted surface had been broken down into abstracted and hard edged areas of colour. If one looks at a particular area of a painting, it is immediately apparent that these works haven't been made quickly. Verner seems to have been continually adding and removing layers of paint to convey the subtle effects of light and at the same time creating a highly detailed and marked surface.

Keith Wilson ARUA.


"Painting is trial and error, somewhere between this there is a balance in which a painting will work."

VERNER FINLAY.

BORN 1962 
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STUDIED
1975-8 Laurelhill High School.
1978 Lisburn Technical College.
1978-1980 Motor Mechanic.
1986 Signwriter/Illustrator.

AWARDS
1995 LEDU Artrepreneur.
1975 Winner of Lisburn's Arts Advisory Council Logo.

EXHIBITIONS
2012 The henry Gilmore Gallery, Hollywood.
2011 The Newcastle Gallery.
2011 The Castle Gallery Lisburn.
2010 Gormleys Fine Art.
2008 RUA Exhibition, Belfast.
2006-8 Solo exhibition, Gormleys Fine Art, Belfast.
2004-8 Group exhibition, Gormleys Fine Art,Belfast.
2004 The Prentice Gallery, Craigavon.
2003 The Castle Gallery, Lisburn.
2000 The Taylor Gallery, Belfast.
1998 The Portstewart Galleries.
1997 The McGilloway Gallery, Londonderry.
1996 The Elaine Summers Gallery, Hollywood.
1995 Group exhibitions, B.B.C. Belfast.
1993 Solo exhibition, Local Hotel.
1992 The Gillian Gallery.
1991 The Newcastle Gallery.
1991 The Seymour Gallery, Lisburn.

PUBLIC SHOWS
2014 The Paddy Hopkirk Gala, Titanic Centre Belfast.
2011 The Merchant Hotel, Belfast.
2011 Antique and Fine Art. R.D.S. Dublin.
1997 Board Failte, Howth, Co. Dublin.
1996 Board Failte, Maysfield, Belfast.

PRIVATE AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS in
America.
Canada.
South Africa.
France.
D.O.E. Offices, Belfast.

Work is also included in many hotels throughout N. Ireland.


CHARITIES,

2014 NSPCC ART AUCTION WITH CARRIE NEELY ART.
2014 The intergrated Education Fund.

2013 The War and Want Auction, Belfast.
2013 The Scoop Charity Auction, Dublin.
2013 Pretty in Pink Charity, Belfast.
2012 NSPCC AUCTION WITH CARRIE NEELY ART.
2012 Cancer focus
2011 War and Want Auction, Ormeau Baths Gallery Belfast.
2010 Tuesday Child, Belfast.
2008 Macmillan Cancer Support.
2002 Children of the fallout Chernobyl.