James Scanlon, born in Kerry in 1952, studied sculpture at the Crawford School of Art in the late seventies. The then principal of the school, Barry Moloney (1935-1992), encouraged Scanlon's interest in stained glass, and by 1982 it had become his main medium. He experimented with painted, layered and etched glass to achieve a jewel-like depth and intensity in the early work. His first one-man show was held in Cork in 1983.

Based on the figure, the small panel pieces in Le Coeur parle au Coeur link with the Woman's Room series shown in the first one-man exhibition. Their aesthetic richness belies the artist's anguished exploration of an absence of the sense of the sacred in contemporary attitudes to human life. The oblique treatment of the female body allows the images to be read at many levels. The element of installation directs the spectator's response to some degree.

James Scanlon has exhibited internationally, and his reputation as Ireland's leading stained glass artist rests on the architectural commissions he has executed since 1985. A serene and lyrical quality characterises much of the glass, which is often based on abstracted landscape themes. Most of these large commissions - the Share building in Cork, the Grace Dieu building in Waterford - involve large expanses of stained glass, but in the Glenstal Abbey crypt chapel in county Limerick and in Sneem, county Kerry, he worked very successfully with small pieces of glass integrated into the buildings. He is currently working on a large commission for the European Union Secretariat.

[VR]

Lit. - Ryan, 1985 / Gordon-Bowe, 1986 / O'Regan, 1991