About the Artist

 

Shane Johnson grew up in Cork, on the south coast of Ireland. After leaving school he went to the Crawford School of Art, then to the College of Marketing and Design in Dublin to study Visual Communications for 4 years. Illustration was what interested him most. After a few years working in graphic design, illustration, and even advertising, he began to turn his work into original paintings. Inspired by the rolling landscape, the brightly painted towns and villages, and the deeply indented coastline of West Cork, Shane started exhibiting there. Paintings of Dublin's coast soon followed.

​

Shane has worked solely as an artist since the late 1990s, based in Dublin. He uses his quirky, illustrative style, a designer's sense of composition, and an intensity of colour to capture the essence of a place in his own peculiar way, be it real or imaginary, coastal, rural or urban. He has exhibited mainly in Dublin and Cork, also in London, and has had many paintings commissioned, both private and corporate. Some well known buyers include actress and author Pauline McLynn, garden designer Diarmuid Gavin and playwright, the late Tom Murphy.