We are delighted to announce that a highlight of the Festival Friday Night will be an appearance by freelance illustrator/ animator and musician David Rooney. This event will also feature Ballyshannon's own Chanelle McGuiness (of whom, more shortly)
David has amassed over thirty years experience as a freelance illustrator. His concept driven scraperboard technique has won numerous awards over the years. As a contributor to The Irish Times and Hotpress his editorial work reflected the tumultuous changes in Irish society.
Work in the last decade has focused mainly on cultural projects - one hundred illustrations for the five part BBC series ‘The Story of Ireland’ was followed by The Titanic Experience Belfast, King John’s Castle Limerick, Lindisfarne Gospels Exhibition Durham, the Stonehenge Interpretative Centre and Edinburgh Castle.
The ‘1916 - Portraits and Lives’ book, published by the Royal Irish Academy, received an IDI Design Award and the 40 original portraits were acquired by the State and exhibited in Kilmainham Gaol in 2016 as part of the 1916 Centenary Celebrations. The portraits subsequently toured the world as prints from Berlin to Buenos Aires before finally reaching Nelson Mandela’s old prison on Robben Island, Cape Town.
More recently he has created album covers and animated video work for Christy Moore and post-rock band God Is An Astronaut. Along with the ‘Ice Men’ series of stamps for An Post and a Bram Stoker’s Dracula coin for The Central Bank he has designed high end whiskey labels for brands like Midleton and Jameson.
The recording of David’s debut album ‘Bound Together’, with Declan O’Rourke as co-producer, took place in 2016. Together with jazz drummer Conor Guilfoyle, he put together some of the finest musicians in the country. 2021 saw the release of a new music project under the name Echotal produced by Torsten Kinsella (God Is An Astronaut) and featuring a host of music and film collaborators. The follow up Echotal EP is due in the autumn.
The Friday night event at the Allingham Arts Festival will feature artwork, animated/film music videos, live music performances interwoven with a talk by David himself about how it all comes together.