Kenneth Webb RUA

Kenneth Webb was born into a creative family in London, 1927 and was educated at the College of Art Gloucester and Cheltenham. He first came to Galway over 50 years ago and has been exhibiting his artwork since. Kenneth has a deep connection with the colour in his paintings and he applies it in various manners depending on the subject of his painting. In his own words, ‘Whenever I am taken by a theme, I seem to have to start all over and invent my own pictorial structure’.

Ballinaboy was a popular subject of his, which to him was exquisite. For Webb as an artist, he needed to have a connection with his paintings in order to create an atmosphere, which is what Ballinaboy did for him. This atmosphere was portrayed through colour. John O’Donohue the Irish author said, ‘Through his paintings are intense icons, you never have the feeling that form or content are forced or contrived. He has managed to penetrate to some deeper level from which the painting is able to assert the dream of its own shaping. He says paintings have always come to him. His work does have that tone of lyrical necessity; they had to come. In our post-modern era, where so much of life is reduced and commercialised through visual and aggressive image, it is healing for the eye and refreshing for the heart to encounter these paintings. If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, then Kenneth Webb is a graced and gracious beholder.’

Webb is not striving for success, we can see from his artwork that he is constantly looking for results from experiments which is an inspiration of any dedicated artist.