Containing hundreds of sketches and watercolours from a collection spanning decades, it investigates the value of using drawings to explore ideas, designs and concepts, record architectural observations, and retain experiences of places, languages and cultures encountered on one’s travels.

The making of a drawing is in itself a journey, a journey to unplanned places where often new aspects of one’s own personality are uncovered. The sketchbook is the ever present silent companion, a sounding board which reflects the echo of one’s own thoughts and reverberations of conversations with oneself.

The beauty of James Horan’s drawings is the first thing that strikes the viewer – the line, the composition, the colour. But if style is always determined by an individual eye and hand, behind it there always lies a mind pursuing a search – as the Renaissance man of Ireland ... It is an outstanding piece of collective art, demonstrating that the power is in the pencil.