Art, Music and Seagulls Dancing

JOHN HURLEY

Art, Music and Seagulls Dancing

By Lynda Cookson

On 23 February 2006, John Hurley, artist, lyricist and musician, attended the World Premiere of ‘Seagulls Dance’ at the Draoicht Theatre in Dublin. He got in for free. And so he should. He wrote all the music and the lyrics!

Not only did he create the music, but he produced a collection of abstract paintings depicting the stage production in soul-awakening abstract form. His painting style is intense, colourful and pure like his personality which is intense, deeply coloured (with emphasis on the ‘deep’ bit) – and I’m not qualified to pass opinion on the ‘pure’ bit!

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Now back to John where I visited him in his home just outside Tralee, and sat on a stool in his music studio amongst an array of guitars, mandolins, avocado pear-shaped shakers, microphones, a computerised keyboard and an elastic band. Well, not really an elastic band, but John who at times made me think of an elastic band stretched to full capacity and about to ‘ping!’ into a hall of fame somewhere.

He’s a very clear-minded person indeed, with not only a well-organised music studio in a room of the house overlooking Tralee Bay, but with an outside art studio and another room set aside entirely for picture framing. As he says himself ‘Maybe twenty years working in a bank in Dublin was a good grounding for me.’ It gave him a solid business head as a perfect shovel with which to fuel his ambitions. And there’s no doubt that he is an ambitious person.