AT his opening at Dublin's Rubicon Gallery on Thursday, the very up and coming young artist Tom Molloy was in the happy position of having completely sold out before the show even opened. Apparently, a mysterious collector swooped in and bought every single canvas.
Josephine Kelliher, the owner of the gallery, was understandably pleased. Her move from a basement in Mount Street to the impressive St Stephen's Green space was certainly a gamble but it does seem to have paid off, with every exhibition producing a healthy rash of red dots.
At the opening was Josephine's exbusiness partner Peter McKenna who has changed career into moving pictures. His script for Bovine won the RTE/Filmbase Award and he's due to start filming in Wicklow later this month. The film's producer is Jenny McCrohan and it stars Stephen Brennan and Lucinda Storm, daughter of Guinness MD Colin Storm and his wife Jenny. Also at the opening were art director Derek Wallace and make up artist Maire O'Sullivan, who are just back from Budapest where they were working on Madonna's new film, Evita.
The talented duo had hoped to work on Peter's film, but it clashes with Serpent's Kiss, one of the big movies to be made here this summer. It starts filming in Galway later this month and stars Ewan McGregor (of Trainspotting fame), Anjelica Huston and Greta Scacchi.