Brian Whelan

About Brian Whelan and Studio Norfolk

Brian Whelan grew up in London, of Irish parents and now lives with his partner, Wendy Roseberry, in the quiet village of Hanworth in England’s county of Norfolk. Since his training at the Royal Academy of Art, he has lived and worked in the East Anglia area for over 25 years.

Brian’s journey as an artist found its definitive gateway just outside his own door, in the medieval churches and dwellings of East Anglia. The vestiges of the medieval art form resonate with Brian’s Irish Catholic roots, back to a time when there was one church and from its painted walls great stories were told. His works, like much medieval art, depict a sublime comedy of life’s glories and tragedies on both religious and secular planes. When on the religious plane, it is religious art with a capital ‘R’. The God of the first testament can even make an appearance, but  Brian’s white bearded patriarch may have a twinkle in his eye and a post-modernist tongue in his cheek. 

As a “visionary painter” (Meryl Doney, curator for Wallspace), Brian’s religious works have  been shown alongside those of Stanley Spencer, Peter Howson, The Chapman Brothers, Eric Gill and Marc Chagall. Solo shows include, the Marian Shrine of Walsingham in Norfolk, England (2004), the Galician city of Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Spring, 2010); St Michael and All Angels in Barnes, London (Summer, 2010); Sacred Space in Notting Hill, London (Autumn, 2010). Future scheduled venues include St Martin of the Fields, Trafalgar Square, London (early Winter, 2011); Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk, England (Winter 2011/12 and St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, Suffolk, England (early Winter 2012).

In addition to painting religious subjects, Brian also feels compelled to paint London, the city of his birth.

He has found that only from the safety of his Norfolk studio can he produce these works, as if memory proves to be the only way the vast subject matter can be put into a work of art. He does this, using multi-perspectives and contradictory scales, bending, twisting and organising the urban chaos into harmony. His painting Rock and Roll Paddy is featured on the Shane MacGowan website and One Foot in the Stirrup and the Other Foot in the Grave graces the cover of The Popes latest CD which features Shane MacGowan, entitled Outlaw Heaven. There is also an eight page booklet of Brian’s work included with the CD.

In 2007 Brian was invited by the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, to exhibit at City Hall and launch the first book on his work Myth of Return. On the other side of the world, Culture Ireland exhibited Whelan's work in a show entitled "Through Irish Eyes" in Beijing.

Highlights of 2008 included an installation entitled Salvation – Damnation at St. Martin’s School of Art, 16 new works of art at the Salthouse Exhibition on the beautiful Norfolk coast and the Roseberry Crest publication of Whelan’s illustrations in King Edmund, Saint and Martyr – a casket of wonders.

2009 launched an international (UK, Spain and US) tour of Brian’s work within the London-Irish context. First stop for The Quiet Men was the PM Gallery, the largest gallery in west London, where award winning journalist Fergal Keane opened the exhibition. The second stop was the Celtic Fringe show at the Liceo de Noya Institute in Galicia Spain, where the London-Irish theme was juxtaposed against its Celtic heritage.

2010 was devoted to the official launch of the London Irish Painting book by the Irish Embassy and Irish World Newspaper and to bringing The Quiet Men exhibition to its third stop - Philadelphia - at the Villanova University Art Gallery.

In addition to several solo and group exhibitions, 2011 brings Brian’s large polyptych painting Transmetropolitan on show at the Ipswich Art School Museum and a documentary on his international tour, The Quiet Men.

Read a summary of Brian's education and work, including exhibitions.