Lorcan Vallely

Lorcan Vallely was born in Armagh in 1979 and completed his foundation course in art and design at the Belfast Art College in 2000, before studying painting at Bath School of Art. After successfully completing his B.A. at Bath he gained a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art, London in 2004.

Vallely then spent a year drawing and painting full time in Oxford as a member of the artist-run Magdalen Road Studios. In the past eleven years he has exhibited his work in London, Glasgow, Bath and Oxford, in Italy and throughout Ireland. In the summer of 2014 Vallely returned to his native Armagh to set up studio and continue his work as a full-time artist.

Using charcoal as his primary medium, Lorcan Vallely’s work has become instantly recognisable, and with the use of acrylic, he layers his work to emphasise light and shade. This tonal quality gives his work an almost three-dimensional effect, and with use of oil the judicious introduction of colour gives an added vibrancy.

“My main interests are figurative drawing and painting and I predominantly work with charcoal and oil on canvas. I enjoy the hands-on approach to the medium of charcoal, the ability to build up layers of tone with real depth and find that working like this on canvas, as opposed to paper, leaves much more scope for this approach; it’s a much more resilient surface. This also allows for the addition of colour that can combine with the tonal charcoal ”

Lorcan has just recently had a piece procure by the O.P.W for the state collection