BLAISE SMITH R.H.A.

Blaise Smith RHA is a well known figurative painter who lives and works in Kilkenny. . He is adept at realist Landscapes, Portraits and still-lives.

Convinced that traditional oil painting has proven itself a long lasting medium he seeks to record Ireland in his paintings as a first hand visual account for future Generations, in the same way that we can admire a Holbein from 1519 in a museum now. 

In 2019 his landscape work was exhibited in Shaping Ireland in the National Gallery of Ireland - a survey show of Irish Landscape since the 1700s. He has exhibited in the RHA Annual Exhibition since 1998 and his most recent show was in the Ashford Gallery in the RHA in September 2023.

In 2017 his portrait “My Parents” was runner up in the National Gallery’s Zurich Portrait Prize and the previous year he won the Irish Arts Review Portrait Prize at the RHA with his much celebrated group portrait “8 Scientists”, a portrait of leading Irish female Scientists for the Royal Irish Academy and Accenture’s “Women on Walls” Campaign. His most recent public portraits are of Taoiseach Brian Cowen for Dáil Éireann(the irish parliament), Brigid Lyons Thornton Irelands first female officer in the Defence Forces for HQ, McKee Barracks, the playwright Bernard Farrell for the Abbey Theatre and many others. He has also completed several large scale State commissions during his career: most recently a 5 metre panorama of Waterford City in 2016 and - SCHOOLWORK - twenty paintings portraying life in a Carlow School in 2011. He has had numerous solo shows and his work is held in many Public and Private Collections. 

Elected as full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy  in 2015 he teaches advanced oil painting techniques and drawing and composition at the RHA Drawing School. He has given talks to accompany his exhibitions in the Crawford, The RHA, Visual in Carlow and (naturally) the Electric Picnic. 

He lives in County Kilkenny.