An exhibition featuring drawings of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch aims to “push borders,” according to its creator.
Mike O’Donnell launched the exhibition in Listowel, County Kerry, earlier this month which featured 12 sketches of The Monk – who even visited the exhibition himself sometime last week.
Gerry Hutch was cleared of the murder of David Byrne following a 12-week trial in April of last year where he was first introduced to Mr O’Donnell - a prominent court artist.
On The Hard Shoulder today, Mr O’Donnell said he fell ill following the trial and felt an “urge” to do more work with The Monk once he recovered.
“I found myself in his sitting room around September or October,” he said.
“I explained to him that I wanted to put together an exhibition with him featuring very prominently with it and he was very interested in that.
“I did about 15 or 16 sketches of him, with a view of developing fully finished drawings and that’s what happened.”
'Chit-chat'
Mr O’Donnell said they shared normal conversation together.
“It was peaceful and there was chit-chat,” he said.
“I brought up a cake from Kerry, an apple tart, and that did the trick, as it does with a lot of fellas.
“He really appreciated it and we had a great chat about a lot of things – football, and how everything was with him.
“He was asking me the same.”
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Gerry Hutch has an “attraction” to him, according to the artist.
“He was of a dark complexion and he had the charisma that suited it,” he said.
“If I had done work of somebody else it wouldn’t have had the same public appeal.
“I had also faced my own mortality and I wanted to push the borders of my art a good bit – this was a big reason why too.”
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Mr O’Donnell said The Monk visited his exhibition last week and “seemed to enjoy it”.
“We had a really good chat about it, it was interesting – definitely,” he said.
Mr O’Donnell also said he is “not particularly interested” in the criminal record of Gerry Hutch.
Main image: Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch being followed by the media and reporters after being freed following his court case at the Criminal Courts, 18-04-2023. Image: Lazarov/RollingNews
