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Spent part of today inÌýOmagh, the Strule Arts Centre where they're showing work by the Belfast artist .ÌýI've recorded a half hour Artsextra special on him for next week.ÌýAs we sit in the gallery space, all around us aÌýselection of political paintings he did from 1975-2008. It's called

They're angry, violent, anguished works. Vivid reds and oranges slash across the canvases, there are dark areas, political slogans, balaclavas,Ìýblack berets, grotesquely contorted bodies in the final agonies of death.

The painting shown is called "Ulster at the Crossroads".

He says he was angry painting them.

Angry at what was happening on his doorstep.

Angry that in the early sixties he had felt an uplift,ÌýexhilaratedÌýby Belfast's cultural vibrancy. It's 1963, the very first Belfast festival at Queens is on, he's in a flat with Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Paul Muldoon readingÌýearly poems in Philip Hobsbaum's famous group.

Then the landscape is devastated in 1969 and the start of The Troubles.

His anger continues. Angry that he and his wife were inÌýthe 20 minutes before the bomb went off.ÌýWhat happened to the old lady they had shared a table with? Or the girls behind the counter he was joking with less than half an hour earlier? He and his wife vowed from that day on they would never go into town together again. Just in case anything happened, at least their boys would have one parent.

While he was doing these paintings, a "catharsis" he calls it, heÌýwas holding down a full time job. English teacher, later Head of Department, at Ashfield Boys High School in East Belfast.

Over lunch, he's full of anecdotes. He remembers one of his pupils, a certain , trying to disrupt the class he was teaching and being told by his teacher that if he didn't quieten down, Mr Pakenham would insert his boot somewhere. I give you the abridged, cleaned up version. According to Jack, Terri's version of events is even more colourful!

He talks fondly ofÌýartist taking him under his wing to hearing Seamus Heaney read for the first time.

His energy is infectious. This is the man who, at 71 years of age, still does cartwheels in the Empire music club.ÌýSomebody in the club one night, telling him he was a great dancer, went on to remark they hadÌýjust heard he was a painter and thatÌýapparently heÌýwasn't bad at it!!

We leave him on Market Street, heading off to see ifÌýany of his more recent work on show at the McKenna Gallery has sold. He looks like he could doÌýhis famous cartwheels but then he's just had lunch. Ìý

"Here it is" is on at the Strule Arts Centre, Omagh until 20th April.Ìý