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In the ‘Quick and the Dead’, four artists who addressed the fraught cultural and political terrain of 1980s Ireland are exhibiting together again, with work that resonates today, in another period of turmoil, writes AIDAN DUNNE

IN 1986 FOUR Irish artists were invited to take part in an exhibition in the United States organised by Boston College and Northeastern University. 4 Irish Expressionist Painterswas a dark, troubled, angry show. It included work by Patrick Graham, Patrick Hall, Timothy Hawkesworth and Brian Maguire. All numbered among the Irish artists who had embraced the international resurgence in figurative, expressionist painting that began in the late 1970s, and all harnessed expressionism to their own, distinctively Irish concerns. Now, the Hugh Lane Gallery’s exhibition The Quick and the Deadreunites the four artists in an extensive survey show combining some of their paintings from the 1980s with more recent work, including much that is being exhibited for the first time.