The Irish artist Brian Harte embeds his paintings in highly prosaic situations and everyday environments. The banal settings of his works help to draw full attention to the image created withpaint, which immediately evokes both the technical sophistication and burden of a centuries-old artistic tradition. Harte is aware of its grand history: He deliberately plays with traditional ingredients to create an environment in which painting can develop further. In a tongue-in-cheek manner, his paintings recall the modernist investigation of the specific characteristics of the medium, but also seduce on an emotional level and do their best to shamelessly entertain a contemporary audience. They resemble picture puzzles full of art-historical tricks and tropes, which play out before our eyes—without ridicule or irony, but certainly with an intention.

Brian Harte was born in 1978, in Co. Tipperary, Ireland. He studied painting at the Crawford college of Art, Co. Cork, graduating with honours in 2002. Since then he has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. Currently his work is shown in a group exhibition at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.