Cyprus Avenue & Other Works, an exhibition of new and retrospective paintings by Belfast artist Brian Ballard, is currently running at the city’s Kenny Gallery as part of the Galway Arts Festival and will continue until the middle of August.

The show marks the welcome return of the renowned painter to the West of Ireland, with a collection of paintings that showcases the bold use of vibrant colour and vigorous brushstrokes that Ballard is best known for. He often returns to the same scene repeatedly in order to express its many moods in paint, and that’s reflected in this collection where the artist turns his focus on the iconic Cyprus Avenue, which is on his own doorstep in Belfast.

He was born in that city in 1943 and most of his creative life is spent there, while Inishfree Island off the coast of Donegal is a place he also calls home.

An artist who has been praised for the “tremendous, engaged vitality of his painting” by critic Aidan Dunne, Brian is one of Northern Ireland’s best-known painters. His work is in the collections of the Arts Council of Ireland, the Art Council of Northern Ireland, Cork’s Crawford Municipal Gallery and the Ulster Museum.

Cyprus Avenue & Other Works runs at The Kenny Gallery, Liosbán Retail Park, from Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm, and online at www.thekennygallery.ie until August 14. Admission is free, all are welcome and all the artworks are for sale.

Any queries about the work can be sent to Dean at art@kennys.ie.

Pictured: Artist Brian Ballard and Tom Kenny of the Kenny Gallery at the opening of Cyprus Avenue.