Rod Coyne

Rod Coyne’s Story

Created in the teeth of a storm or on the shores of a placid mountain lake, Rod Coyne’s paintings convey a narrative that allow the viewer to witness nature and landscape first-hand. The combination of his contemporary painting styles depict the elemental atmosphere of a living landscape. His passion and direct approach communicate this power and energy as he opens a window to the Irish landscape in your living room.

Rod Coyne is permanent artist in residency and owner/manager at Avoca Gallery. Here he is also the inspirational facilitator of the Avoca Painting School. “So many of his images could be straight out of my own memory, very strange and wonderful, the red lightship, the Wicklow high valley, the angel glimpsed,” said Irish Laureate Sebastian Barry of Rod Coyne’s work in 2009. The artist graduated from Dun Laoghaire and Crawford Colleges of Art, before moving to Düsseldorf in 1990. After a decade working in his Rhine-side studio he returned to paint the Irish landscape en plein air. Coyne founded the Avoca Studio Gallery in 2003 followed later by the Avoca Painting School in 2010. Rod exhibits on the international stage and his paintings grace public, private and corporate collections quite literally worldwide.

After a decade painting in Düsseldorf I came home to paint the Irish landscape. This plein air conversation continues unabated now into its 16 year. With the landscape as a vehicle my painting has morphed continually. Originally working with acrylics I turned to oils in 2005. Realising the oil was still malleable I began to distress the surface back at the studio creating atmospherics. Later, on realising all detail dissolved during that process I replaced brushes with palette knife. Enjoying this crisp image I stopped distressing the paint in 2010. Since 2012 I had been searching to marry atmospherics with palette knife. In 2015 I achieved that union to an adequate degree with my “Waters Soft & Wild” exhibition.