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Royal Academician Hughie O’Donoghue was born in Manchester, England in 1953, and after completing an MA at Goldsmiths in 1982, was an Artist in Residence at the National Gallery, London from 1984–1985. His often epic-scaled paintings invite comparisons with Anselm Kiefer, but with a more natural touch, inspired by time spent in his mother’s homeland of County Mayo, Ireland. “His paintings,” according to the Royal Academy, “explore themes of universal human experience, often on an epic scale, [and] meditate on ideas of truth and the relationship between memory and identity, drawing on history and personal records to create works which resonate with emotional intensity.”

In advance of a solo show at Marlborough London (Deep Water and the Architecture of Memory, through January 15, 2022), O’Donoghue spoke with Charles Saumarez Smith CBE, former director of The National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery and former Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Arts. Whilst O’Donoghue has usually divided his time between London and Ireland, the pandemic kept him in London, working exclusively from his studio in Greenwich. This has resulted in a new body of work that reflects upon his urban environment which was eerily empty in the height of lockdown. During the talk, organized by Southern & Partners, O’Donoghue discussed his new London works as well as his continued series of Cargo paintings on tarpaulin, providing insight into his artistic practice spanning over 40 years.