Charles Tyrrell was born in Trim, Co. Meath in 1950 and studied at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. Since 1984 he has lived and worked in Allihies, on the Beara peninsula in West Cork.
His early large-scale canvases were influenced by the work of American abstract expressionists but recent work has become more concerned with geometric relationships between rectangular forms and borders. Grids are a near-constant presence, adopting an underpinning role rather than taking centre stage. His works on canvas, board and aluminium are precisely controlled explorations into the qualities of paint, and their finely textured surfaces reveal an intense enquiry into the possibilities of the medium. Always engaged with abstraction, his painting comes from a minimalist starting point and, leaving room for the intuitive, builds towards work that reaches out and resonates.
Charles Tyrrell represented Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1982. He won the Carroll's Award at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1974 and received a special mention from the jury of the 1981 Cagnes-sûr-Mer Painting Festival. He taught at the Dun Laoghaire School of Art (now IADT) from 1974 to 1984 and in 1982 he was elected as a member of Aosdána. Major exhibitions of his work have taken place at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Butler Gallery, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Solstice Arts Centre, and Crawford Art Gallery. Tyrrell's work is represented in public and private collections both nationally and