Seans Show - 7.30 Friday 24th September 2010, Normoyle-Frawley Gallery, John St. Limerick
Welcome to the gallery page for my second solo exhibition of Paintings.
I find that if I enjoy other artists work either current of from art history, I tend to seek out the story behind their work.
So I offer some small insights into the show and to how I see these latest paintings.
When I paint it is mostly outside in the open or ‘Plein Air’ as the French Impressionists called it at the end of the nineteenth century.
This method requires speed and efficient use of colour and applying of paint coupled with awareness of changeable weather conditions.
As a result the work tends to appear loose, painterly but always with an eye to the representational and with a foundation of good drawing skills.
It’s a learning experience each time because it’s a gamble.
You head off each time to a location or a view, mostly chosen beforehand and considered with sketches or simply where the view and atmosphere suits the mood of the day
(this however is always in keeping with my umbrella motif as it were).
Since just about anything inside or outside your door is worthy of subject material( how great is that in art!) ideas began to show themselves as to what to paint.
Some common strand, a theme, out of which could grow a series.
After the dust settled on my first solo show I could see a theme through the work. Most of the Landscape work looked like pathways, a way through to the other side.
Now while being conscious of the way I wanted the paintings to look, it occurred to me that in the imagery I may have been looking to the future, to some goal or some hope of making something make sense.
After all, these days there are an infinite number of subjects and themes that creative people seek out or invent.
So for me where to begin was just by doing and the story of the work would make itself known through time and effort.
Since I figured the early work may have been forward looking, I see the work now to be very much in the moment.
Nearly every day there is the opportunity to make work from an event, a point of view of nature and or human interaction that lends itself to a picture.
It’s a way of witnessing the beauty of life that goes on around us and more importantly, through us. Sometimes the painting doesn’t come together due to weather( bad excuse?) or frustration (and no coffee!)
But when it does there is a little sense of elation. Because of the speed and urgency there is little time for thinking just moment to moment decisionmaking.
It may not be the most groundbreaking image at the end of the day but the feelings during it can be sublime.
So it’s the combination of getting all the gear ready, heading off, setting up and stepping off into and taking that one shot that can give a sense of being in the flow of life. Really being in the moment.
This summer I travelled to the south of France to the lower regions of Provence. I have been looking at the work of artists who ventured to these areas in search of the light and atmosphere so suitable for lengthly painting outside.
The likes of Monet, Sisley, Van Gogh, Leech and Lavery to name but a few who found great inspiration in these climes and locations.
Plus I wished to travel with all the gear in the traditional way, packing paints and easels and heading off on foreign soil to produce plein air work.
Not an easy task as it turned out, lugging all that stuff to and fro but worthwhile in the end as it became part of the process.
The manual effort of getting to a spot, working in the heat(how bad) and coming home each day with my prize was very satisfying.
Before going to France the notion of a wider theme began showing itself in the work. Growth, toil with the land and harvest.
I had remembered that my father had grown his own produce from some years when we were younger.
His work in the garden was a way for him to reconnect with nature after long days in the office, and of course blow off steam.
Now I would observe my brother doing the same. He takes great pride in producing his own vegetables from his patch and bringing them to the table, even though it is difficult work (that he sometimes does reluctantly).
I could see potential in this kind of imagery. The hard work done by a close family member urged me to work hard at each piece, showing my own labours at a painting.
This idea I took with me to the Provence region which is known for its plentiful growth and where Vincent van Gogh himself engaged with in his well known work showing the toil of the common man as he put it as well as his wish
to be both infused with and vigorously portray the very energy and life force of nature itself.
It was this affinity to nature, and the labour that goes into portraying such a motif that became my main interest at that stage and I would consciously seek this out.
In an effort to portray this type of motif the painting itself became more expressive, but without losing sight of the representative. There is a striving now to show the vitality in nature, its energy and the energy of the individual communing with it. It is something many people of our generation are rediscovering for themselves.
I hope you enjoy.