Charles Tyrrell was born in Trim, Co. Meath in 1950 and studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Since 1984 he has lived and worked in Allihies on the Beara peninsula in West Cork. Charles Tyrrell’s early large-scale canvases were influenced by the work of American abstract expressionists but his recent work has become more concerned with geometric relationships between rectangular forms and borders. His works on canvas, board and aluminium are precisely controlled explorations into the qualities of paint, and his finely textured surfaces reveal an intense enquiry into the possibilities of the medium that remains defiantly abstract.

Charles Tyrrell represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1982. He won the Carroll’s Award at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1974 and received a special mention from the jury of the 1981 Cagnes-sûr-Mer painting festival. He taught at the Dun Laoghaire School of Art (now IADT) from 1974 to 1984 and in 1982 he was elected as a member of Aosdána. The RHA Gallagher Gallery held a ten-year retrospective of Tyrrell’s work in 2000. He has exhibited frequently in the Oireachtas Exhibition and the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, and more recently has exhibited in solo shows at the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny; Austin Desmond Fine Art, London; and Triskel Arts Centre, Cork.

Exhibitions with Taylor Galleries:
2009 Paintings and Etchings
2007 Charles Tyrrell
2005 John Gibbons and Charles Tyrrell (with John Gibbons)
1999
1995
1995
1991 New Work 1989 Drawings
1988
1983
1981
1980 Paintings + Drawings