THERE should be an outburst of unseasonal sunshine over Dublin's RHA Gallagher Gallery when that eternally optimistic artist Pauline Bewick unveils her latest collection of work called the Yellow Man. Ms Bewick is in especially cheerful form just at the moment following, reunion with her husband, the psychiatrist Patrick Melia (the couple had announced their separation in March 1993) and "the marriage of their daughter Poppy Melia to environmental scientist Conor Mulvihill last autumn.
Around the same time, she celebrated her 60th birthday which was "really heavenly. The whole family went to Cahirdaniel and stayed at a sort of student hostel".
Ten years ago, Ms Bewick marked her 50th birthday with a retrospective exhibition at the Guinness Hopstore, while at the same time David Shaw Smith's television documentary was broadcast and Dr James White published a monograph on her work. This time around, in addition to the new show, there's also discussion of a television programme which will be jointly produced by Channel 4 and RTE.
A book based around the Yellow Man has also been produced. So who is this creature? "He's a kind of ideal human: content on his own and completely at ease with himself." Aside from the exhibition, the Yellow Man can also be seen in a dance/theatre piece devised by Brian Thunder and Michael Scott.
Her original inspiration, explains the artist, came seven years ago when she was supposed to be working on another project while staying at the house she and her husband bought in Tuscany back in the 1970s. This property is currently being restored by the couple's other daughter, Holly, who lives there with her Italian boyfriend Luca Belucci.
Europe seems to be more of a base now for Ms Bewick, who spent a lot of time during the 1980s in the South Pacific, regularly staying on Aitutaki, one of the Cooke Islands. "I'll go back there again one day, she says, but in the meantime she can reminisce with her next opus, South Seas And A Box Of Paints which is due to be published next March.