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Rossmore Island, by Michael Flatley, which sold at auction for €22,500.

Rossmore Island, a painting by Fermoy resident and Lord of the Dance star Michael Flatley, has been sold at an auction in Co Laois for €22,500.

Mr Flatley, who last year announced his intention to pursue a career as a visual artist, paints locally in a studio on his Castlehyde estate just outside of Fermoy town. What is unique about his paintings is that he does not use a brush, rather he dances on a paint-covered canvas to create the desired image.

Last week the 106cm by 104cm painting was sold to an unnamed Irish bidder, which  opened at €10,000 and had a pre-auction estimate of €20,000-€30,000, and was sought after by five competing bidders, in an art auction broadcast online.

Mr Flatley has described Rossmore Island as part of a series of paintings on the Great Famine, inspired by plagued and tortured islanders forced to emigrate.

Prior to the auction, auctioneer Philip Sheppard summarised Mr Flatley’s work to the Irish Times: “The painting is an acrylic on vinyl, as a genre it would be an action painting. What is extraordinary about this painting is Michael Flatley has innovated in such a way that he breaks the boundaries of contemporary art; he has applied paint to his feet and literally danced the image on to the canvas.

“We all know that a dance is a fleeting moment, it’s there (then) it’s gone forever, and suddenly through a process of transmogrification he has made this a two dimensional representation of his dance, that is there forever.”

While the auction catalogue described the work as a 'ghostly landscape of a once vibrant island now devoid of people, lends its name to the title. Icy blue waters make up the torrents of waves that crash against the Kerry coast: waves that have carried both the living and the dead. The work explores a sea of plenty that simultaneously teased and tormented the famine-stricken land.

'Broad strokes of blue run diagonally and horizontally in an endless flow of tears that merges with a sea obliterating the amber richness of the land. The dark black beneath serves to symbolise the plagued and tortured islanders as they struggle to escape from the vice-grips of death. The mighty sea beguiles the living as the relentless waves – like sinister hands of greed – snatch mercilessly from the island.'

Previously Mr Flatley sold two of his paintings in charity auctions, and presented a painting to the State, which last year was on display in the Taoiseach’s office. The art pieces are framed using wood from the Castlehyde estate.

The Riverdance star will perform on stage, for what is expected to be the last time, in Dublin next year, when his show Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games runs at the 3Arena.

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