The concept of the proposed project is to show two contemporary artists from Ireland in two different spaces at the Galerie Seippel in Cologne: Rod Coyne’s “Seeing Red” and Shane Sutton’s “Immersion On”. Both bodies of work are unique investigations into perception. In his series of landscapes, Coyne views his environment in an altered state, where the greens of the landscape have been inverted/replaced into a palette of reds, whilst maintaining faithful colouring for sky and sea. Coyne’s familiar Irish landscapes become fundamentally different and surreal, and take on an otherworldly aspect. Before written language early settlers attached their history and mythology to features of the landscape, passing wisdom through the generations. Through “Seeing Red” the artist urges us to take a second look at the landscape and view it as the pages of a local almanac. With “Immersion On” Sutton explores the real world, the virtual and the space in between. Moving between street, canvas and digital media, he works with visual displays, motion, sound, augmented and virtual reality, built around a body of street art, canvas, and fine art prints. By doing this he creates immersive experiences in virtual spaces for the viewers to explore.

The contemporary art gallery Galerie Seippel with its four floors of exhibition spaces is situated in the heart of Cologne. For the last 30 years, the curator Ralf Seippel and his team have curated almost 200 exhibitions and projects in Cologne, in addition to curating and realizing projects internationally on all five continents. Their work includes education programs, publishing and editing artist monographs, art awards, training courses and workshops for artists, dialogue exhibitions and gallery exchanges, international and national light art projects, exhibitions of paintings, sculpture, photography and multidisciplinary art forms. They have worked extensively in South Africa with a second gallery space in Johannesburg and have also successfully put on group exhibitions of South African, Australian and South American artists in Cologne. They are also currently creating a network of artists, who are based all over Europe.

During the past twenty plus years Rod Coyne’s painting style has developed constantly through several distinct stages. He is driven by risk taking and experimentation, arriving to some unique results. Coyne founded his Avoca Studio Gallery in 2003 followed later by his Avoca Painting School in 2010. “…his images could be straight out of my own memory, very strange and wonderful, the red lightship, the Wicklow high valley, the angel glimpsed,” said Irish Laureate Sebastian Barry of Rod Coyne’s art in 2009. Coyne graduated from Dun Laoghaire and Crawford Colleges of Art, before moving to Düsseldorf in 1990. After a decade working in his Rhine-side studio he returned to paint the Irish landscape plein air. During thirty years of painting, he has amassed a broad following of collectors, been critically acknowledged through awards, shortlisting’s, grants, residencies, and international invitations. His art hangs in prestigious public, private and corporate collections.

Shane Sutton is a passionate and innovative artist with a strong interest in multiple disciplines such as traditional painting, film-making, and street art. With a diverse range of talents that span across various mediums, including street art, graphic design, motion graphics, independent film, product design, and illustration. Currently, his focus is on street, canvas, and digital art, with much of it explored through his street art persona SPACER. Through SPACER, he explores the intersection of art and technology, creating technically resonant works that delve into themes and ideas in innovative and unexpected ways. Some of Shane’s most notable achievements include an art residency with the European Space Agency (ESA UK), where he exhibited at the Living Planet Symposium in Milan. Additionally, he won the Graffiti without Gravity street art competition with the ESA in Holland and signed the winning art work in zero gravity. In addition to his work as a painter, Shane has also made significant contributions to film, winning several awards at international film festivals and earning a nomination for best editing at the Irish Film and Television Awards. Shane’s body of work is a testament to his dedication to his craft, with his pieces ranging from explorations of the impact of technology on our lives to recent works that delve into themes through the street art genre. His art is always developed through exploration and is thought-provoking in its nature, processes, and development.

Part of Zeitgeist Irland 24, an initiative of Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland in Germany.