Artist Kieran McGonnell dies

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Kieran McGonnell’s paintings combine gorgeous color, witty social commentary and Celtic imagery inspired by his Irish homeland and the genius of Yeats and Beckett.

Some of his subjects were simple — butterflies and koi; a bicycle or a bus. But the colors, as the Irish say, “would knock yer eye out.” They were the bluest blue, the greenest green, the tangerine-est tangerine.

Mr. McGonnell, of Edgewater Glen, died in hospice care Jan. 11 at age 43. He never awoke from a serious fall in November that caused a traumatic brain injury. He spilled down the steps outside his North Side home and hit his head on the concrete.

The native of Cork City, Ireland, studied art at Hunter College in New York City, where he lived for most of the last 20 years. He and his life partner, Gregg Driben, loved New York, but after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the city felt like it was closing in on them — especially for an artist who craved a big studio with lots of light. Mr. McGonnell had an art opening that day just three blocks from the World Trade Center.

“He was down there at the gallery on his bicycle when it happened, so he was really shaken by it. He rode his bike as fast as he could” to return to their home in Chelsea, Driben said.

They moved to Chicago three years ago after Driben took a new job here. Mr. McGonnell loved the lake, the Midwestern light and fresh landscapes to paint.

In addition to art, Mr. McGonnell had studied computer science and math. The discipline and order of those subjects echoed in his work habits and canvases. He planned paintings on his computer before he even picked up a brush. He usually painted every day for three months straight. Then he would take a month off to research new ideas, take photos and plan — and start the cycle anew.

He often used concentric circles, a Celtic motif that goes back in Ireland for 5,000 years. The famous Irish burial mound called Newgrange, considered older than the pyramids, is decorated with swirling circles. Some say they represent eternity.

Mr. McGonnell’s writer friend John Wing saw a link between his Celtic circles and Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming,” which begins:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ...”

In another McGonnell work, the words of Samuel Beckett decorate the background.

Even if they were tied to lofty writers, Mr. McGonnell’s oils and watercolors were commercial and eye-catching. “In the last 12 years he made a living from his art,” Driben said.

Jennifer Lindsay Sullivan witnessed his appeal firsthand at a show last year. “The first night, I think he sold $10,000 worth of his paintings at this brand new gallery in the West Loop because it was so fantastic,” said Sullivan, founder of TheArtTrade.com. “The colors were vivid, lively. Every time you look at one of his paintings it just puts a smile on your face.”

His work often contained playful social commentary. A painting of monster trucks was called “The Trouble With Democracy.” He painted a series of pop cans and bottles, but the containers were so wide, they cover the canvas. One was titled “Breakfast in Boise.” “It was all about obesity,” Driben said.

“His art was expressionistic, vibrant, emotional, sophisticated — but also whimsical,” said Ellen Wallace, a Highland Park-based art consultant.

In addition to Chicago, his work has been featured in galleries in Cork, Dublin, Milwaukee and New York, as well as corporate collections.

Mr. McGonnell had style. He always wore diamond earrings given to him by Driben. He had a wardrobe of about 50 hats, from porkpies to Dillinger-esque fedoras. “He’d wear a one-dollar hat that looked like it was from a flea market, like from the ’20s, and he would get 100 compliments on it,” his partner said.

He also had the kind of eyes the Irish say are “put in with a sooty finger” — cornflower-blue and fringed with black mink lashes. And he had the kind of looks they sang about in “Rent:” “Ever since puberty, everybody stares at me, boys, girls, I can’t help it baby.”

Whenever they went out to eat, “Every waitress said, ‘You have such beautiful eyes,’ ’’ Driben said. “He was often mistaken for Antonio Banderas.”

At restaurants, “He would eat steak and mashed potatoes and salad, and he would order the same thing every time,” his partner said. Mr. McGonnell liked hanging out in coffeehouses, where he’d write in his journal and read poetry.

He was a terrific home cook who never followed a recipe. “Kieran made the world’s greatest french fries,” Driben said. His mashed potatoes, brimming with just enough butter, were crave-inducing. “Whenever we had company, people would ask for it in advance.”

He enjoyed roots music, especially from Johnny Cash, and the work of pulp novelist Jim Thompson, who wrote The Grifters.

Mr. McGonnell is also survived by his mother, Carmel; his brothers, Paul and Aidan, and his sister, Karen McGonnell Burrows. Wing wrote that his beloved dogs Janis Joplin and Spike Lee “look for him every day.”