Colin McMaster was born in Belfast in 1977. He studied at Central St. Martins, London where he continues to work and live. After being awarded the Royal Ulster Academy Student Prize, he has shown at art fairs and exhibitions in Glasgow, New York, Miami, London, and has had solo shows in Dublin and Belfast.
Outside the gallery setting, Colin has shown work in retailers such as; Richard James Savile Row, Heal’s Department Store, Selfridges window display, Matches and paintings auctioned as part of the English National Ballet Ball. Pieces are held in the collections of BDO Hayward, Hiscox, Lacuna Developments and the Merchant Hotel.
Stylistically, the work owes much to the Pop Art movement. The artist paints stereotypes rather than individuals, meshing references from romantic comics and their heightened sense of melodrama, with the more sinister undertones of American lm noir and pulp crime novels.
The subjects are superficially attractive but there is an underlying sense of their narcissism and perhaps even their engagement in acts which the viewer is compelled to interpret as illicit. As a result, the viewer is cast as a voyeur, the perception of what’s taking place in the paintings suspended in a double take, in an ambivalence between observation and accusation. The smoothness of the picture surface and the mannequin-like quality of the figures, heightens the feeling of artifice and blurs our sense of looking at a painted image.
Exhibition History:
2018: Moniker Art Fair, Old Truman Brewery London
2016: Moniker Art Fair, Old Truman Brewery London
2014: Kunst Museum Bochum, Germany, Collection of Frank Hense.
Royal Ulster Academy Exhibition, Ulster Museum
2013: Art Gemini Prize Finalists exhibition
2011: Work selected for the Davy Portrait Awards, touring Ireland
2009: Work auctioned at English National Ballet Ball
2008: Nixon Artmosh, London – Shoreditch Studios. Works auctioned as part of Ken Livingstone Fundraising Campaign. Solo show at Molesworth Gallery, Dublin
2007: Solo Show at Merchant Hotel, Belfast
2005: Affordable Art Fair – New York. Affordable Art Fair West – Bristol Art 2005 – Islington Design Centre, London
2004: Affordable Art Fair – Battersea Park, London Alive – Exhibition at Will’s Art Warehouse, Fulham. Affordable Art Fair – Glasgow
2003: Trust in Art – Selected Irish artist shown in Hillsborough Castle, as part of Irish Arts Forum and Princes Trust Charity.
2002: Stars of the East Exhibition – britart.com gallery. Golden – britart.com gallery.
Art2002 – Islington Design Centre, London. Affordable Art Fair – Miami, USA.
2001: Affordable Art Fair – Battersea Park.
2000: Futuremap 2000 – The London Institute Gallery, Davies St. Work drawn from the years degree shows. Being a Celebrity – Exhibition at Sosho Match, Shoreditch
1999:Winner of the Royal Ulster Academy Student Prize. Exhibited at the Ulster Museum, Belfast.
