Clúdach: Cover

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This year, the four covers of New Hibernia Review’s 2014 volume will survey the originality and range of printmaking in Ireland in a series of images created by artists associated with the Cork Printmakers. The examples chosen will all respond to scenes of the Cork harbor. Since 1991, Cork Printmakers has supported the creation and development of new work and to bring this work into the public domain. A membership-based arts reseource, it provides the space, facilities, equipment, tools, and materials necessary to create a body of work through the medium of printmaking.

Our second print in this series of covers is titled “Once, in December,” and is an etching and aquatint by David Lilburn (b. 1950). The print measures 54 x 36 cm., and was created for the recent NOVA show at the Cork Printmakers gallery, which was on exhibit in December 2013 through January of this year. “Once in December” employs Lilburn’s characteristically busy mark-making and expressive composition. Calling to mind the “automatic drawing method” used by the surrealists and artists like Miro, Klee, Kandinsky, as well as outsider artists like James Castle, there is a sense of plenitude in the scene that is almost reminiscent of children’s drawings—or even of comic illustration, with its flat, stacked composition and a visual disarray that verges on the apocalyptical.

David Lilburn lives in Limerick, where he was born in 1950. He studied history at Trinity College Dublin, lithography at L’Istituto d’Arte, Urbino, and art and design at Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), where he previously taught and remains an external assessor. Lilburn took up a post at the University of Limerick in 1983. He is a member of Limerick Printmakers, an associate member of Cork Printmakers and a trustee of the National Self-Portrait Collection. Together with artist and writer Jim Savage, he runs Occasional Press, which publishes art-based books. Lilburn’s work is held by major galleries and in private collections in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Europe. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the King and Piercy Mid-Career Award, a fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, and several awards administered by the Arts Council of Ireland, including the Michael Byrne Award for Print and the Mary Farl Powers Printmaking Award. His website is http://www.davidlilburn.ie/.

We thank the staff of Cork Printmakers, and especially its director, Valerie Byrne, for kind assistance in obtaining our cover images.