Laurence O’Toole

The piece deals with a worrying trend of humanity normalising oppression and war, of blatant greed and the never ending need for more. The barefaced lies that have over taken the half truths and the recklessness of the inept who seem to be clamouring to the summit of every peak. A slightly haunted childlike mannequin of humanity opens up to society oppressing itself, the healthier and wealthier with a passive aggressive stance to their weaker twin, orbited and enabled by the great institutions that feed off poverty oppression for their own power, and then the “white elephant” of a gift, the blind kitten, to sugarcoat the experience

The work is a commentary on how we seem to be moving away from our humanity and into a purely profit based morality, a kind of poverty oppression

Laurence O’Toole is a realist painter in both oil and acrylic, whose narrative work is a melding of figurative and nature. He has won two awards at the Royal Ulster Academy and has shown at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and Royal Scottish Academy. His work has been collected by the OPW and featured in publications and in collections of Banks and state institutions. Currently showing with Gallery 33 Contemporary in the USA, Hambly & Hambly in N.Ireland and The Kilkenny Gallery, in Ireland.