OFFICAL BIOGRAPHY

Born in Dublin, 1983, Gary Farrelly is an emerging Irish artist currently based in Paris. One of the founders of The Defastenist movement, Farrelly co-wrote 'the manifesto for an obsessive art' in 2006 with curators Padraic Moore, Donna Marie O'Donovan and musician David Turpin. Though young, Farrelly has accrued an impressive résumé of exhibitions and artistic projects in several countries including Ireland, France, Germany, The United States and Iran.


(Farrelly as a child with a KLM hostess at Amsterdam Schipol Interbnational Airport)


For Gary Farrelly (1983-2077), ideological and aesthetic compromise is the most difficult aspect of "Real Life". As a consequence, he furnishes a "compensating" art that is a precise physical manifestation of egocentric world view. In and through his practice he develops strategies to implement his will. Habitually working with the flotsam and jetsam of an ultra-consumerist society, Farrelly modifies history, revises geographical boundaries and populated the world with images, concepts and issues that stimulate him most.

Through fastidious and obsessive processes Farrelly produces exquisite art objects, which enable him to simultaneously attain a position of perpetually gratifying contingency. By means of devotional commitment to his work Farrelly expects to eventually construct and inhabit that sought after state of utopia

Don’t cry-work (2007) P.E.Moore

Between 2001 and 2006, Farrelly studied fine art at The National College of Art, Dublin. He began publishing a Xerox publication Kunstbahnhoff in which he illustrated his artistic principals supported with decorative diagrams and statistics. Through the dissemination of Kunstbahnhoff, he came in contact with other artists working in the same vein. In 2003 The Defastenist Party was founded, Farrelly contributed to various publications produced by the group. He also presented the parties bi-weekly cabaretta which ran in various improvised locations throughout 2004/5. The Defastenist Party has exhibited as a group half a dozen times in Dublin, Paris and Berlin - Farrelly has been involved and shown on all occasions becoming known for his 'edgy and gifted paintings and prints'(the Dubliner April 2005) and his highly rhetorical discourse.

(Defastenist group photograph, Dublin 2005)


(Farrelly's work(back wall left)) on display at the September 2005 exhibition of Defastenist art, which was held in Liberty Hall, Irelands tallest building and attracted 4000 people over its 10 day run)

Gary Farrelly has had three solo exhibitions at the time of writing: Saddam International Airport (2006) where he exhibited a series of works inspired by airports built by despots beside drawings of invented airports dedicated to his own personal heroes and cultural icons (e.g. Quentin Crisp International Airport). Obsessive Territories (2007) featured seven large handmade maps of fictional countries invented by the artist and a series of commerational panels marking their cultural and infrastructural achievements. Kunstbureauobsessive (2007-present) is an on going exhibition of Farrelly's artworks at Galerie W, Paris.

(KUNSTBAHNHOFF PROPAGANDA (2007), Paris)

The artwork often involves recurring fixation with utopic, infrastructural and systematic subject matters: aviation, despotism, road building, railways, statistics etc. Often manifested in the form of cartography, diagram and bureaucratic lists - Farrelly infuses these readable formats with personal and rhetorical information that makes the work simultaneously readable and confusing to the spectator.
Producing 7 days a week, 10 hours a day in his windowless cockpit sized studio, the artist creates art objects which have been show by institutions all over the world. Including Whitebox foundation (New York), The Crawford municipal art gallery (Cork), The Belltable (Limerick), A3 Foundation (Paris), and Electrowurst (Berlin). His work has been purchased by collections including. The Cawford Gallery, Marina Guinness, The Academy of everything is possible, Kevin Kavanagh, Martin Lu, Dominique Plassard, Valery and Christy Moore, Damian Mathiews, Caroline de la Marinier, Luca Marenzi and John Bruton (former Irish prime Minister and EU ambassador to the United States.