Ian Irvine: Visual Cocktails

Ian is an experienced artist, born in Liverpool in 1958. The majority of his work consists of screen prints and collages. In fact, the screen prints are essentially collages transferred into another medium. Made by printing ink through a mesh screen onto paper or canvas, they include found and appropriated images combined with colours, and ‘gestural’ marks to make a coherent whole composition. They are influenced by some of the Pop artists of the 1960s and 70s such as Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Hamilton.
The images used are often from past eras, and include illustrations, diagrams, covers from ‘Pulp’ novels, film stars, and references to the art of past centuries. They could be referred to as ‘visual cocktails’.

The collages are a separate body of work, and are often quite puzzling and surreal.
Hand-cut with just scissors and glue, these are influenced by some of the great Surrealist artists of the 1920s to 1950s such as Rene Magritte and Max Ernst. Included here are so-called ‘Remade Classics’ which are a take on some very famous paintings from past centuries, re-imagined with strange new interventions and made with a dose of humour.

This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Ian’s brother David, who lived in Sankey, near Warrington for most of his adult life, and died in 2023.