Blaise Smith was born in 1967. He attended Fine Art painting in NCAD. He then worked in TV and as a Multimedia interface designer. He moved to Kilkenny 1996 and took up painting again after a ten year break. He won the Cork County Council Centenary Commission in 1999 and produced Roadworks, a series of 26 paintings celebrating their workers, machinery, and roads. He is a regular exhibitor in the RHA Annual show and has been selected for the BP portrait Exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2003 and 2004. He has had seven solo shows in the Molesworth Gallery, Dublin. He has just completed a major suite called "Weapons": a series of paintings of Guns and military equipment belonging to the Irish Army which was first exhibited in The Hunt Museum in October 2008.
Selected Exhibitions and Awards
EXHIBITIONS
2009 WEAPONS, The Molesworth Gallery
2009, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1997 RHA Annual Exhibition
2008 WEAPONS, The Hunt Museum Limerick
2008 WEAPONS, Iontas, Castleblaney
2008 Blaise Smith, the Molesworth Gallery
2007 The F word, Contemporary figurative painting, The Molesworth Gallery
2007 RHA Banquet Show
2006 Blaise Smith, the Molesworth Gallery
2006 National Portrait Gallery, London, Bi-Centenary Exhibition
2005 Blaise Smith, the Molesworth Gallery
2005 RHA Banquet Show
2004 Blaise Smith, the Molesworth Gallery
2004 C2: 1995 - 2005. The Crawford Gallery, Cork
2004, 2003 BP National Portrait Award Exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, London
2001 Blaise Smith, The Molesworth Gallery
2000 Blaise Smith: The Millennium Landscape, Kilkenny County Hall
2000 Blaise Smith, The Molesworth Gallery
2000 The Crawford Open
2000 Roadworks, West Cork Arts Centre, Skibbereen
1999 Roadworks, The Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh
1998 Blaise Smith, The Dolmen Gallery, Limerick
Awards and Commissions
Roadworks: Cork County Council Centenary Commission 1999. 26 paintings
The Kilkenny Landscape. Kilkenny County Council Millennium Commission. 10 paintings.
Portrait of Seamus Pattison TD, LCC, for Dail Eireann
The RHA James Adam Salesroom Award 2003.
The James kenneth Kennedy Award for Portraiture 2002
The RHA Abbey Studio Award 2001
The Caracciolo RHA Medal 1999
The Arnott's Portrait Award 1999
The Fergus O'Ryan Memorial Award 1998
The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award
Publications
WEAPONS, Blaise Smith, Steve Grossman, Jane Tynan, 2008
Blaise Smith - the Molesworth Gallery 2004
New European Artists, Edited By Edward Lucie Smith
BP Portrait award Catalogue 2003, Foreword by A.S. Byatt
BP Portrait award Catalogue 2004, Foreword by Blake Morrison