Reviews

“Some mysteries are clear...the cast is metaphysical, much like de Chirico.

“There is an important predecessor in recent American art for O’Donoghue’s conceptions: Jasper Johns’ 0-9 series of lithographs in the mid 1960’s...As with O’Donoghue, the significance was the introduction of mutability, the recognition of change through time into an art previously concerned with static objects.

“There is another ancestral strand in O’Donoghue’s conception, the Irish one. It might be recalled that Yeats’ celebrated vision was a cosmogony, a schema which provided the framework for a lifetime of poetry.”

William Zimmer (Art critic for the New York Times ) Arts Magazine, Feb. 1976

“The subtleties and oddities of O’Donoghue’s combination of disparate elements bear considerable study. His art is rewarding, as all good art is, in accord with what the viewer brings to it.”

Margy Betz, Art News, April 1976

"These difficult images extend O’Donoghue’s predilection for unexpected juxtapositions of images to the point where logic is ruptured and exposes a higher logic in which contradictions are resolved.”

Melinda Wortz, Art News, Sept 1978

“Even when totally obscure, O’Donoghue’s strong images are cheerful, harmonious and inviting. His diagrammatic schemes and archaic instruments exhilarate and disturb. He is reminiscent of de Chirico in his bold clarity of manner. But these coloured prints are more intimate, and disconcertingly confident, than de Chirico’s echoing streets.”

Hillary Pyle, Cork Examiner, 3rd September 1987

"...his mezzotints and etchings are conceptually neat, solidly crafted images which wear their substantial concerns lightly."

Aidan Dunne, Sunday Tribune, 16th July 1989

"O'Donoghue has made his mark on the world of Irish art...presented with the panache of a skilled technician."

Gerald Davies, The Sunday Business Post, 19th May 1991

"Impressive"

Brian Fallon, The Irish Times, 7th June 1991

‘The Sculpture Road to Killarney’ - “You are travelling on no ordinary route…acclaim sounded on all sides.”

Jo Kerrigan, Ireland of the Welcomes, vol. 53 no.1 Jan-Feb 2004

“Extraordinary Sculptures...this passionate sculptor brings mythic emotions and figures to huge, three-dimensional life...roadside masterpieces...heroic..."

Brian Dunn, Killarney Magazine, Issue 2, Vol 1, Feb 2005

Tighe O'Donoghue/Ross is considered to be chief of the sept of O'Donoghue Mór, for from his ancestor, the attainted rebel prince Rory O'Donoghue, descended the rapparee family of the O'Donoghues of Ross. Tighe's identification with his Gaelic heritage is both intensely felt and intensely imagined. Although rooted in the Irish landscape, his themes are drawn from mythology, prehistory and history and convey the future and the past in a single vision, for it is psychological truth rather than physical reality that interests the artist.

All Tighe's paintings have a powerful symbolism, a meaning far beyond the themes that inspire them. When he depicts figures they are mythological, creations of his own psychological landscape.

ARTS Magazine described Tighe O'Donoghue/Ross as a visionary artist in the tradition of William Blake and the American artist, Albert Pinkham Ryder, but the wellspring of Tighe's creativity is unique...The term 'visionary' is entirely accurate in so far as Tighe creates fantastic worlds of his own which reflect not what is but what might be, behind the veil of the reality that we normally experience.

Jo O'Donoghue, 'Heart Mysteries' The Art of Tighe O'Donoghue/Ross,
in Rod O'Donoghue's Heroic Landscapes, Londubh Books, 2011

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