EIGHT ARTISTS, including novelist Colum McCann, guitarist Louis Stewart, and poet Gerard Smyth, were elected yesterday to Aosdána.
The affiliation of creative artists in Ireland elected eight new members at its general assembly in the National Gallery, bringing the current Aosdána membership to 235.
Literature figures strongest among the new members.
The writers elected are:
Poet and fiction writer Mary Dorcey. She is taught on Irish studies and women's studies courses internationally and on the Junior Cert and British O Levels. Her second novel is A Fortunate Womanand she is writer-in-residence at the centre for gender and women's studies at Trinity College Dublin.
Novelist and short-story writer Christine Dwyer Hickey. Her novel Tattywas shortlisted for Irish Book of the Year in 2005 and longlisted for the Orange prize. Her three novels, The Dancer, The Gamblerand The Gatemakerwere reissued in 2006 as The Dublin Trilogy, and her novel Last Train From Liguriawill be published in June.
Award-winning fiction writer Colum McCann. His five novels and two short story collections include international bestsellers This Side of Brightnessand Dancer; his new novel, Let the Great World Spin,will be published in September. Dubliner McCann lives in New York, and his short film Everything in this Country Mustwas nominated for an Oscar in 2005.
Poet Maurice Scully. His books include Love Poems Others, 5 Freedoms of Movement, The Basic Colours, Priority, Sonata,and Doing the Same in English. Born in Dublin and educated at TCD, he is published in Britain, the US and Ireland.
Gerard Smyth. His first two books were published by the New Writers Press when he was 18. Born in Dublin, his main poetry collections are World Without End; Loss and Gain; Painting the Pink Roses Black; Daytime Sleeper; A New Tenancy;and The Mirror Tentand his selected poems will be published later this year. He is also managing editor of The Irish Times.
Two visual artists were elected to Aosdána.
Gary Coyle. His work embraces film, photography and performance, but at its core is drawing. A member of the RHA, he was born in Dublin, lived in New York and London and returned to Dublin in 1997. He is fascinated with the everyday, and particularly with his own locale Dún Laoghaire.
John Gibbons. He was born in Ennis, Co Clare and works in London. He was awarded the Macauley Fellowship in Sculpture in 1975, and many other awards including the Bryan Robertson Trust Award in 2008. He has had solo exhibitions in Ireland, Britain, Spain, Hungary, Germany and the US.
Interpretive artists do not feature strongly in the Aosdána membership, so the election of Louis Stewart is significant. Awarded the special jury prize at the 1968 Montreaux International Jazz Festival, he has worked with Benny Goodman and Tubby Hayes, and was a member of Ronnie Scott’s quartet in the 1970s. In 1994, as a member of the Shearing trio, he featured opposite Tommy Flanagan’s trio in The Blue Note in New York. He lives in Dublin.
Membership of Aosdána is by peer nomination and election, and limited to 250 living artists who have produced a distinguished body of work. Membership was opened to architects and choreographers in recent years. If their income is below a threshold, Aosdána members living in Ireland may be eligible for a “cnuas” of €14,180.