Born in Dublin. Studied at Yale University School of Art and Architecture in the early 1960s, but has spent most of his working life in Great Britain. From 1974 to 1988, he taught at Goldsmiths' College, London. In 1989 a major retrospective of his work was held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. In 1995 he curated Drawing the Line an exhibition of drawings from pre-history to the present day. In 1998 he represented Great Britain at the XXIV Sao Paulo Biennale in Brazil. Most recently he has created major installations at the Kunstverein Hannover (1998) and at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (1999). In 1999 he created a site specific wall painting covering all the walls on the ground floor of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as the introduction to the first part of the museum's millenium exhibition "Modern Starts" curated by John Elderfield. He did site specific wall paintings for the exhibition "New British Art 2000: Intelligence" at the Tate Britain, in the IVAM in Valencia, Spain, and in the Sintra Museum of Modern Art. The Berardo Collection, in 2001.
