Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956) Donald Teskey loved to draw as a child and got great encouragement from his family. His family had a successful building firm and a large joinery, where Teskey explored the environment of off cuts, resins and sawdust, this gave him the interest in the potential of materials. His love of nature and landscape was ignited through his fishing trips with his father as a child. He studied at the Limerick School of Art, where he felt passionate about drawing, although drawing the figure in the traditional sense was being discouraged in many Fine Art departments, Teskey always kept drawing central to his work and conceptually his work developed. Teskey had his first solo show in 1980 and has had many exhibitions in Ireland and the U.K. he has been involved in Group Exhibitions in Ireland, USA, Germany, Canada and Europe. His work is in the collections of The Arts Council of Ireland and the National Contemporary Drawing Collection. “One could be forgiven for thinking a storm is always brewing in the world of Donald Teskey's work. This was true of his early drawings, and it remains true of many of his latest, boldly gestural paintings. In these, winds whip waves into turbulent masses of choppy water and fling them against headlands and harbour walls. Even when the mood is calmer, the hospitable, waterside buildings have the weathered, rugged air of structures made to withstand the elements.“ Aidan Dunne, Irish Times, April 2001.