David Egan is on the brink of something special. When his plane touches down in Dublin tonight, it will mark the start of what promises to be a breakthrough year for the Sydney-based Irish artist.
Last year U2 said that Egan (36) could reproduce their lyrics in his unique pop-art paintings. By August, he will have finished Music To Your Eyes, a 50-strong collection inspired by 50 of the band's song, songs. They will then be shown in Dublin in his first exhibition on home soil. Next, he will take the show to London, Paris, San Francisco and New York.
Egan is very successful in Australia, and has a rapidly growing international reputation, but the U2 collection looks set to usher his talent onto the world stage. He brims with excitement, but says he is ready. Egan insists he is happy with what he has made of his talents since leaving Ireland in 1988 in search of excitement. "I feel my work is at a New York standard," he says in his quiet, assured manner.
Reflecting on a rainy Saturday morning on the twists and turns his life has taken in the past decade, he concludes he is typical of 30-something Irish emigrants in Australia and around the world. Like so many others, he thinks he has become successful abroad because of what he left behind.
"For the majority of [emigrants], leaving Ireland to be in another country means they've left a place they love," he says.
"They want to make that sacrifice amount to something, so they work at whatever they do once they leave. There's also a sense that when the time comes to go home, you don't want just to have had a job during your time away, and go home with nothing to show for it. You almost feel you have to earn your way home. I've certainly always wanted to be a success."
After studying art at Letterkenny RTC for a year, he went to the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. He was soon disillusioned by what he considered poor teaching, however, and dropped out in his first year. He left for London, where he lasted a few weeks before moving to Sydney for a year. That was 13 years ago.
In his mid-30s, Egan had a successful career as an art director in design houses around his adopted city. But nine years ago, he succumbed to the pull of paint and canvas, turned his back on the advertising industry and immersed himself in his first love, becoming a full-time artist.
He is now artist in residence in The Rocks, Sydney's cultural quarter. He has a gallery in the area, reproduces his work on a line of customised clothing that he sells in his own shop, and says he cannot find enough hours in the day to keep up with demand from international collectors.
Before last year's Olympics, the city commissioned him to do a series of murals. Egan was also invited to be a goodwill ambassador during the Games.
He says bringing his work home for the first time will be very symbolic. He returns to Ireland regularly, to see his family in Goatstown, Co Dublin, but this time it will be different. He will be bringing his paintings to exhibit.
"It's important, because most of my relatives back in Ireland haven't got a clue what I do," he says, slightly bemused.
Measuring up to six feet by four feet, the 12 finished works in the Music To Your Eyes series are explosions of colour. Although inspired by the U2 spirit, they are dominated by the cheeky pop-art figures that characterise all of Egan's work.
They are what you would expect from a man who is addicted to U2 and counts the pop artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat among his influences.
"U2's songs are all big songs, they're anthems, so I felt these [paintings] had to be very big and very colourful. There's no doubt about it: when you see these paintings, they're in your life," he says, surveying a half-finished work amid the clutter of his Sydney studio.
Although he wants to keep the growing collection together for the world tour, he has already sold four of them, "to people just walking in off the street".
"Because we didn't want to sell them at this point, we put the prices up when people became interested. But still they have sold," he says.
At 20,000 Australian dollars (about £8,800) each, they are hardly a conventional impulse purchase. Each has been sold on condition that it is temporarily returned to the artist, so he can bring the entire collection to Ireland.
THIS week's trip to Dublin will see him pick a venue for the exhibition. Perhaps more importantly, Egan will also meet U2's management to formalise his relationship with the band.
"It all started last year when I heard U2's song Beautiful Day. I thought it was incredible. I had to paint it. When I got that one done, I was really pleased with it. I'd used some of the lyrics from the song in the painting, so we decided we should let U2 know we were doing this".
Once Egan's manager, Patrick Foret, contacted U2's management, he e-mailed examples of the artist's work to Dublin. The Irishman was given the thumbs up to do as he pleased with any of the band's lyrics, an increasingly rare occurrence in the copyright-crazed music industry.
"We even had an e-mail from them saying that Bono likes the stuff, which is great, because I really admire where they are as artists. They've always just gone for it," says Egan.
He has yet to meet the band, but does not rule out Bono, the Edge, Larry and Adam playing "some kind of role" in his exhibition "at some point" on its odyssey.
"I have heard of other artists contacting bands to use their lyrics in paintings, and they have either been just told, `no', or they have been told, `yes, as long as you give us $1 million or $5 million'. But U2 have just said: go and do it. When we email them one day, we have a reply the next," says Foret.
Having grown up "in a family of artists", Foret studied art management in his native France before managing galleries in Japan in the early 1990s. Then he moved to Sydney. Six years ago, he saw some small works on a stall in a Sydney market and, he says, was blown away. He discovered the artist was Egan, and the two have been in partnership ever since. While he manages the business, Egan paints six days a week in his 185-year-old studio.
Under Foret's guidance, Egan's business fortunes have mirrored the direction of his creative star. His Sydney gallery and shop are flourishing and his work is bought by international collectors.
But Foret is also set to tap into his experience of the Japanese market in the next 12 months, opening a gallery in Tokyo for Egan's work. "I have never met someone like David before," he says. "Always painting, with so much energy, so many ideas. For me, in promoting David it is about the art, the passion."
Website: www.eganart.com.au