Painting the Great War

An exhibition of paintings by Irish Artist Paul Woods will be on show at Athy Community Library this week, with an introductory talk scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday, at 7.30pm.

The talk is 'Visual Encounters with the Great War — Contemporary approaches to painting World War 1'. Admission is free.

Paul Woods is a Kildare based artist, originally from Co Louth. He has exhibited extensively in Ireland, America and Europe and his work focuses predominantly on warfare and conflict — he believes that events of the past have a great influence on our understanding of society and civilization now.

In his work he deals with the past and present traumas of history and tries to engage the viewers in the process of deconstruction of generally accepted opinions.

Paul has travelled and researched extensively on the subject matter of war and conflict, from battlefields in Europe and North America, Auschwitz in Poland to the Kwai River in Thailand.