LONDON.- In 2011 Hughie O’Donoghue was commissioned to undertake the challenging task to produce two stained glass windows for the Henry VII Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. For the last two years, he has been working on 30 full scale painterly cartoons that have been translated into glass for installation. The motif for the windows is the English flower garden and in particular the lily.

The process of transferring the layered and painterly aspects of the artist's work into the medium of glass has been one of intense experimentation. This experimentation and many visits to Barley glass studio in York has led to a way of working in glass distinct from traditional forms. The artist has placed emphasis on the chromatic possibilities of glass and how colour, line and form might be integrated into the unique, late Gothic, architectural setting of the Lady Chapel (1503-1512).

The artist's immersion in this process has inevitably led to a cross fertilisation with his own practice as a painter leading to an entirely new body of 19 paintings on paper, which are a direct result of his experiences of working in glass and his involvement with the imagery of the flower garden and the voluptuous qualities of flowers. Marlborough Fine Art is exhibiting all 19 of these beautiful works.

Hughie O’Donoghue was born in Manchester. He lives and works in London and County Mayo, Ireland. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at private and public Galleries, including: Abbot Hall, Kendall, Leeds Art Gallery, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, the Imperial War Museum, London, Birmingham Art Gallery, and the Haus der Kunst, Munich. Laboratory 05, Royal Academy, London.