A slightly edited version of this review appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 17 July 2016.
When the dust settles on Anthony Cronin's career I suspect that he will be remembered chiefly for Dead as Doornails, his classic memoir of Dublin literary bohemia of the Fifties and for his highly-readable biography Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. Despite a substantial output, his reputation as a poet doesn't seem to have acquired the heft of near contemporaries such as Heaney, Longley, Mahon or Kinsella. He is best known for RMS Titanic, his poem "about the death of an old school morality or decency.” In 1986 Thomas Kinsella omitted him from his capacious New Oxford Book of Irish Verse. A very pointed snub. It has been suggested that he went to London at a crucial stage in his career and thus fell out of favour with our parochial literary establishment. Or perhaps his versatility as a man of letters is looked askance at in a specialist area.
The End of the Modern World is ambitious in its scope. It is no less than a sustained elegy for the decline of the west. The poem is an expanded and amended version of a collection of sonnets first published in 1989. It now contains 179 sonnets - 18 more than the original, and some of the earlier sonnets have been amended. Cronin is not for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in, he aims at reason not rhyme and his sinewy iambs often feel more like declamatory prose than poetry. He describes his work as a "psychic history of western civilisation". The tone is sombre throughout and it concludes with the empty triumph of materialism and intimations of the essential meaninglessness of life. We are far removed from the romantic myth of Adam and Eve and a Paradise Lost:
The sun, a crucible of nuclear rage,
Knows nothing of such ends, it thrummed out rays
Of heat until the ooze transformed itself.
The nearest comparison is to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. In addition to their eloquent pessimism, both are replete with borrowings from literature, both lament the death of romantic love and they both occasionally let the poet intrude into his poem ("I must keep my iambic beat").
The key to understanding Cronin's poem is Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. This poem also inspired Stephen King's highly lucrative Dark Tower series of book - an irony that Cronin I'm sure appreciates as his poem laments the triumph of brute capitalism. There are specific references to Roland and the Dark Tower within the poem, and many oblique ones. The final sonnet paints a picture of Manhattan and its skyscrapers, those symbols of materialism, that give the Dark Tower its contemporary shape:
Money's convulsions too are life-giving,
Neutral, imply no purpose in our hearts,
But blazed upon this rock to make Manhattan
Rise in resplendence, such a culmination
Just as Childe Roland involves a journey and a quest, Cronin's poem is a trip through Western civilisation going back to Roman Times, beginning with the invention of the plough:
Until the mould-board plough dragged through the mud
From there we are taken on a ride through feudal society, the cult of courtly love and the growth of the great manors, and the French Revolution. Ireland gets a look in via the Famine:
The horror of their hunger, so reflected
Even by burnished mirrors of rich corn
Was what they fled from in dumb multitudes.
Literary figures emerge regularly. Section two Of the sequence opens with a meditation on Milton, and Baudelaire and Byron also appear. Cronin is much possessed by sexual matters and he grimly records the transition from the brutal to the business-like with just a little courtliness in between.
Newspapers dangled girls like carrot bunches
The range of allusion to historical events is very broad, and abrupt changes occur with little transition - like Pound's Cantos. Mussolini "hung by the heels", scenes from Auschwitz, Robert Kennedy's funeral, Gaughin in Tahiti, De Sade's sexual prowess, Elvis's penchant for white panties all form part of his journey.
Sonnets 152 to 155 are all new and it's not difficult to see in them Cronin's ambiguity about his own role within the dark tower as Haughey's arts commissar:
A padded door, to lunch with Evil in
An inner sanctum. And of course he loved it,
While Cronin may have supped with the devil, his poem also contains many references to the hardship he endured by abandoning the Bar for a literary career:
The admonition from the EBS
Which threatened to uproot me every month,
The ESB which threatened instant darkness
This has a topical feel to these lines. His tireless advocacy for state subsidies for artists is based on bitter experience. But his concluding sonnets suggest a despair at the impotence of the arts in the face of the all enveloping power of capitalism:
A passionless acceptance reigns within
These air-conditioned spaces which absorb
To the faint murmur of a distant duct
The last assault waves of the avant garde
New Island Books
€11.95
pp. 96
John P. O'Sullivan
Showing posts with label Aosdana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aosdana. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Monday, April 11, 2016
Review of: John Behan - The Bull of Sheriff Street
An edited version of this review appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 10 April 2016
Anyone seeking prurient details of bohemian antics a la Francis Bacon or Ted Hughes will be disappointed by this short biography of the sculptor John Behan. The discretion about his personal life is so absolute that we are not even told the name of his first wife. A footnote tells us that "the spouse of John Behan wishes not to have her name appear in this book" - a restriction that draws unnecessary attention to a banal fact. It's well known he was married to the artist Constance Short so why bother omitting it. Frazier undertook the book as a way of helping Behan deal with the death of his partner Emer McHale in 2012. He describes it as "a work of recuperation" in which Behan's friends "would get a nod to help out". So it would be churlish to chide it for being no more than it sets out to be - an entertaining tribute to the genial artist. However, along the way it succeeds in providing a fascinating insight into the politics of Irish art during a fraught and transformative period.
Although many would associate Behan with Dublin, and particularly the Project Arts Centre, he has lived in Galway since 1980. He made a lasting mark on the cultural life of the capitol in a number of ways before he moved west. The scion of a corner shop on Sheriff Street, he left school at 15 to serve a seven year apprenticeship as a metal worker. Playing with metal stirred some artistic impulse and he enrolled in night classes at NCAD in 1957. In 1960 a bronze bull of his was accepted by the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA) and his career was on its way. The critic James White admired its "simple and witty conception". Subsequently he went to London and later Birmingham to work. The money he earned through working seven days a week meant that he could return to Ireland and pursue the artistic life. He never returned to structured employment. While in London he encountered the work of artists such as Henry Moore, David Smith, Elizabeth Frink and Michael Ayrton. These were influences that were to play a significant role in his evolution as an artist. He was particularly taken with the methodology of David Smith which showed him that being a metal worker was "an avant-garde advantage".
By far the most interesting aspect of the book is its account of the art politics of the 60s where the indifference of the Arts Council, and the cosy restrictiveness of the RHA and the IELA led to frustrated outsiders such Behan and Michael Kane having to find their own way of gaining the public's attention. Behan was part of a loose movement that included Kane, Brian Bourke and Charlie Cullen. They were working-class lads who felt excluded by an art establishment in general and the Arts Council in particular. That organisation was dominated by the architect Michael Scott and its director the colourful Fr. Donal O'Sullivan. The latter with his shot silk waistcoat and his personal wine cellar comes in for particular criticism. When he wasn't sharing a mistress with Graham Greene he was presiding over the Arts Council's buying policy which favoured the ethereal compositions of Louis le Brocquy and the decorative abstraction of Pat Scott (who was employed by Michael Scott at the time) rather than the rough, expressive figuration of these uncouth boys. The critic Brian Fallon described its policy as "arbitrary and exclusive to the point of cliqueishness", and excessively skewed in favour of abstract art "because it is abstract".
Behan was a prime mover in a number of initiatives to redress the perceived injustices suffered by him and his fellow outsiders. He was involved in the creation of the Project Arts Centre in 1967 and was the first artist to exhibit there - a collection of lithographs. He was also a major figure in the Independent Artists group which instigated its own annual exhibition as a reaction to the hegemony of the Protestant matrons who dominated the IELA - formidable figures such as Evie Hone, Mainie Jellet, Anne Yeats, and Norah McGuinness. One of Behan's most significant contributions to Irish art was his creation of the Dublin Art Foundry in 1970. Before this initiative Irish sculptors had to send large work to England to be cast. This often took many months as they waited in line behind Moore, Ayrton and the other big names of that era. Behan initially pitched the idea to the Arts Council but the elegant Father O'Sullivan who had "a hatred of sculpture" rejected his plans. Behan carried on anyway and raised the necessary money. His legacy is still with us today.
His engagement with the art establishment and his energy and enthusiasm for more inclusive and accessible art bore fruit in 1973 when the old establishment dominated Arts Council was disbanded and a new more democratic one was constituted with him as a member. He was able to put into practice his belief that art was for the people and not just for the few. His ascent from outsider to being a member of the new establishment was confirmed in 1978 when he was one of the first group of artists elected into Aosdána. Following the breakup of his marriage in 1980 to the coy Constance he moved to Galway - stepping back from art politics to focus on his work. Anyone interested in Irish art and our cultural history, will find much to admire in this doughty character and much to interest them in this generously illustrated and handsome book.
The Lilliput Press
Pages: 152
RRP: €25
Anyone seeking prurient details of bohemian antics a la Francis Bacon or Ted Hughes will be disappointed by this short biography of the sculptor John Behan. The discretion about his personal life is so absolute that we are not even told the name of his first wife. A footnote tells us that "the spouse of John Behan wishes not to have her name appear in this book" - a restriction that draws unnecessary attention to a banal fact. It's well known he was married to the artist Constance Short so why bother omitting it. Frazier undertook the book as a way of helping Behan deal with the death of his partner Emer McHale in 2012. He describes it as "a work of recuperation" in which Behan's friends "would get a nod to help out". So it would be churlish to chide it for being no more than it sets out to be - an entertaining tribute to the genial artist. However, along the way it succeeds in providing a fascinating insight into the politics of Irish art during a fraught and transformative period.
Although many would associate Behan with Dublin, and particularly the Project Arts Centre, he has lived in Galway since 1980. He made a lasting mark on the cultural life of the capitol in a number of ways before he moved west. The scion of a corner shop on Sheriff Street, he left school at 15 to serve a seven year apprenticeship as a metal worker. Playing with metal stirred some artistic impulse and he enrolled in night classes at NCAD in 1957. In 1960 a bronze bull of his was accepted by the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA) and his career was on its way. The critic James White admired its "simple and witty conception". Subsequently he went to London and later Birmingham to work. The money he earned through working seven days a week meant that he could return to Ireland and pursue the artistic life. He never returned to structured employment. While in London he encountered the work of artists such as Henry Moore, David Smith, Elizabeth Frink and Michael Ayrton. These were influences that were to play a significant role in his evolution as an artist. He was particularly taken with the methodology of David Smith which showed him that being a metal worker was "an avant-garde advantage".
By far the most interesting aspect of the book is its account of the art politics of the 60s where the indifference of the Arts Council, and the cosy restrictiveness of the RHA and the IELA led to frustrated outsiders such Behan and Michael Kane having to find their own way of gaining the public's attention. Behan was part of a loose movement that included Kane, Brian Bourke and Charlie Cullen. They were working-class lads who felt excluded by an art establishment in general and the Arts Council in particular. That organisation was dominated by the architect Michael Scott and its director the colourful Fr. Donal O'Sullivan. The latter with his shot silk waistcoat and his personal wine cellar comes in for particular criticism. When he wasn't sharing a mistress with Graham Greene he was presiding over the Arts Council's buying policy which favoured the ethereal compositions of Louis le Brocquy and the decorative abstraction of Pat Scott (who was employed by Michael Scott at the time) rather than the rough, expressive figuration of these uncouth boys. The critic Brian Fallon described its policy as "arbitrary and exclusive to the point of cliqueishness", and excessively skewed in favour of abstract art "because it is abstract".
Behan was a prime mover in a number of initiatives to redress the perceived injustices suffered by him and his fellow outsiders. He was involved in the creation of the Project Arts Centre in 1967 and was the first artist to exhibit there - a collection of lithographs. He was also a major figure in the Independent Artists group which instigated its own annual exhibition as a reaction to the hegemony of the Protestant matrons who dominated the IELA - formidable figures such as Evie Hone, Mainie Jellet, Anne Yeats, and Norah McGuinness. One of Behan's most significant contributions to Irish art was his creation of the Dublin Art Foundry in 1970. Before this initiative Irish sculptors had to send large work to England to be cast. This often took many months as they waited in line behind Moore, Ayrton and the other big names of that era. Behan initially pitched the idea to the Arts Council but the elegant Father O'Sullivan who had "a hatred of sculpture" rejected his plans. Behan carried on anyway and raised the necessary money. His legacy is still with us today.
His engagement with the art establishment and his energy and enthusiasm for more inclusive and accessible art bore fruit in 1973 when the old establishment dominated Arts Council was disbanded and a new more democratic one was constituted with him as a member. He was able to put into practice his belief that art was for the people and not just for the few. His ascent from outsider to being a member of the new establishment was confirmed in 1978 when he was one of the first group of artists elected into Aosdána. Following the breakup of his marriage in 1980 to the coy Constance he moved to Galway - stepping back from art politics to focus on his work. Anyone interested in Irish art and our cultural history, will find much to admire in this doughty character and much to interest them in this generously illustrated and handsome book.
The Lilliput Press
Pages: 152
RRP: €25
Monday, May 04, 2015
Eilís O'Connell: Profile of the Artist
You turn right off the Inniscara Road between Cork and Dripsey to get to Eilís O'Connell's studio - a converted creamery perched on a hill. The large and handsome steel gates open into a property well-furnished with examples of her formidable art - a stern woven steel piece here, a curvaceous purple and blue creation there. Their presence a surreal shock against the lush green backdrop of the Lee Valley. In this bucolic location one of Ireland's most successful artists creates her internationally acclaimed sculptures.
When the history of Cork's philistinism about art is being written, the saga of Eilis O'Connell's Great Wall of Kinsale will surely merit a chapter. The desecration of her 1988 sculpture has been well documented - the local council (amongst many other transgressions) painted over her corten steel structure despite her specific instructions not to do so. She is still angry nearly 30 years later: "It was torture, the whole thing was torture. I get physically ill passing it." During the subsequent controversy she had stones thrown at her, her car tyres slashed and was even refused service in some shops by the good citizens of Kinsale. It's ironic indeed to look over her career since that protracted debacle and see that the offending sculpture proved to be the foundation stone for her success at home and especially abroad. It was responsible for her winning the competition that led to her monumental Secret Station in Cardiff Bay. "I was taken seriously in Britain due to my 1988 piece The Great Wall of Kinsale. They could see that I worked big. They loved it, and I got great credit for it."
Her string of subsequent high-profile commissions in the UK include Vowel of Earth Dreaming its Root, in London Docklands and the award-winning Nyama in Bishopsgate. She has particular affection for her playful Pero's Bridge in Bristol. "That bridge is mad." She sees it occasionally as a backdrop in English TV programmes. "I get such a kick out of that." She also continues to reap a rich harvest internationally. In 2002 her large bronze Unfold was lent by the Cass Foundation to the Venice Biennale and her smaller sculptures were shown at the Guggenheim Museum. She has also shown at the Paris and Sao Paolo Biennales and is currently trying to finalise a large project in Hong Kong. Leaving Sean Scully to the Americans, there is a very strong argument for declaring her our best-known and most successful artist on the international stage. She hasn't been idle at home either. Since moving back to Ireland in 2002 she has completed Reedpod a 13.5 meter sculpture for Lapps Quay in Cork and her recent polished mirror steel tribute to E. S. Walton in Trinity. She is amongst the blessed of Aosdana, a founder of the Cork Sculpture Factory, a former member of the Arts Council and a long-standing member of the RHA.
Born in Derry, O'Connell moved to Cork with her family when she was ten. She always wanted to be an artist (three of her uncles painted) and pestered her parents to send her to art classes at the Crawford College of Art when she was 12. Later studying at the Crawford she came under the influence of the sculptor John Burke. He was a charismatic and influential teacher and an enthusiast for the hard-edged abstraction of David Smith. Burke's own career was dissolved in alcohol - a not uncommon fate for a visual artist in Cork. O'Connell's early work was influenced by Burke's modernism but she evolved into her own woman - with a sensibility more drawn to organic forms. She remains grateful for the encounter however, recalling with a smile his shouting "the fucking worst show you ever did" across a crowded Hendrik's Gallery opening. A typical Burke incident. Another Cork artist who influenced her was Maurice Desmond - for the example he showed her in living the life of the artist without compromise. "Maurice was the only full-time artist in Cork at the time. He showed me that it could be done." After a distinguished student career, various awards and fellowships followed. She was determined to broaden her horizons: "As a young artist I was always desperate to get out of Ireland." She was granted a fellowship at The British School at Rome in 1983, and a P.S.I. Fellowship for New York from the Irish Arts Council in 1988. After New York she won a two-year residency at Delfina Studios in London. "Delfina Studios were amazing, every 6 months we had to open our studios and I got to know people very quickly and started applying for shows and commissions." She ended staying in London until 2002 - settling in Deptford. Then a tragedy disrupted the smooth flow of her career. In 2001 her long-term boyfriend Herbie died suddenly. She was thrown by this event: "I had never been unhappy before". She felt the need to return to Ireland and to the support of family and friends. For a while she couldn't work: "I did feel that I'd never make another thing." But eventually she got back to work (completing a gravestone for Herbie) and adjusted to her new life. "I have discovered that solitude was the making of me." Although back living in Ireland, O'Connell has no romantic notions about the place. She doesn't particularly embrace being Irish: "My nationality is not an issue - I feel European." She maintains that "Ireland is a very hard country to be an artist in."
She looks outward to the international scene: "What's Gormley doing? What's Kapoor doing?"
There are two strands to O'Connell's career as an artist. In addition to the public and monumental side that makes the money, there is the smaller work that is best demonstrated by her critically acclaimed Haptic show at the RHA in 2011. Her larger works are created in her spacious well-equipped studio and adjacent barn. She is the first artist I have ever met with her own fork-lift. She also has a small studio on Crete where she creates smaller hand-worked pieces.
"The quality of light there is incredible and the silence of no power tools, I look at everything in a different way. I have no materials only the local amazing beeswax, in a way, the limited resources have given me great freedom."
She always thinks big - seeing virtually all her small pieces as scale models for larger works. "Almost every single thing I make is a model for something that could possibly be made big." Her public work she sees as a way of counter-balancing the ugliness of much modern development. She describes her large piece in London's docklands as "an organic antidote to a very ugly location". She prefers her work outside in the real world - subject to ageing and weathering. "In a museum it's like still being in the head." She sets a lot of store on the after care and maintenance of her public work and bemoaned the appalling state of John Burke's graffiti bedecked sculpture at the Wilton roundabout in Cork. "We have a whole culture of non-maintenance."
It's hard to pin O'Connell down to any particular style or school. There's a hint of Brancusi here and a touch of Henry Moore there (look at Sacrificial Anode in her Haptic show) - and now and then she goes back to her more hard-edged mentors such as David Smith and her late tutor John Burke. She is a restless and eclectic artist often just going where her experiments with materials take her. She is constantly playing with the possibilities of bronze, steel, epoxy resin, mirror polished stainless steel, and even Kevlar - the carbon fibre material used in bullet-proof vests. She once took possession of 1.5 kilometres of stainless steel cable. After leaving art college she worked for a while with hand-made paper - a medium she revisits occasionally. A striking example can be seen in the upcoming RHA annual show. She does what she feels like doing and what she did yesterday may be radically different to what she does today. She refuses to be a predictable, easily marketed product and pours scorn on artists like Tony Cragg who "keeps doing the same thing because he has to supply 55 galleries".
Most of the small bronzes in O'Connell's current show in Hillsboro Fine Art originated in Crete but were finished in her Cork studio. Some suggest teepees and she concedes that "the forms are about refuge and shelter". But she is impatient with those who look for metaphor or meaning in any specific work: "It has no significance whatsoever. It's just a yoke." A statement that typifies O'Connell's lack of arty preciousness. The title of the show is Khôra - a particularly slippery Greek term. You can travel from Plato to Derrida for a definition and still be none the wiser. Perhaps Martin Heidigger's formulation is the most applicable: a "clearing" in which being happens or takes place. O'Connell's work is equally difficult to define. She cannot be confined to any particular "ism". It is abstract but often with figurative resonances. It is classically severe but often with sexual intimations. Perhaps it's best to conclude that her sculptures exist, like Platonic forms, purely as things of beauty for our restful contemplation.
John P. O'Sullivan
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Martin Gale at Taylor Galleries
An edited version of this review (with a less horsey bias) was published in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 23 November 2011.
A martingale is a device used to control the carriage of a horse's head. There's a delicious irony in the fact that the artist Martin Gale's parents, racing folk, selected such a resonant name for a boy who went his own way and thwarted plans to guide him towards a conventional career. His father hadn't exactly followed a conventional path himself. He was an English NH jockey who worked with Vincent O'Brien, managed a stud farm and became chief handicapper with the Turf Club. Gale senior was educated at Ampleforth College, near the village of Ampleforth where his grandfather was Master of the Hounds. Gale's mother came from an Irish equestrian background in Galway. She rode work for Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochford, the Queen's trainer, during the Second World War when all the stable lads were serving in the forces. She was also the first female jockey to win a point-to-point in Ireland. The only sign of this regal equine heritage is a mounted fox's head in Gale's studio. A souvenir of his father's association with the Sinnington Hunt. However the artist hasn't strayed far geographically from the racing world. His warm and well-appointed house outside Ballymore Eustace, is just a few miles east of the Curragh. Notwithstanding their horsey proclivities the roots to his current profession can still be traced back to his family. His father, clearly a well-rounded man, was an enthusiastic amateur painter and passed on this interest to his son starting with the oil paints he gave him at the age of six. His mother's family were also painters and from an early age he remembers them all making their own Christmas cards and receiving fulsome praise for their efforts. Also, the family home was bedecked with inherited equine art including work by Snaffles and Lionel Edwards. Charles Lamb was a close friend of his mother's family and over the years they acquired many of his paintings. So there was exposure to a variety of art for the budding artist and encouragement to have a go himself. But art for his family was seen as an accomplishment not a career.Gale's earliest formal education was a spell of private tuition at Vincent O'Brien's home in Ballydoyle, near Cashel, where his classmates were O'Brien's daughters Elizabeth and Susan. (This connection was to surface again later in life when he sold a painting to Kevin McClory, Elizabeth's husband and master of Straffan House.) He moved on to become a boarder at Newbridge College. There he remembers the positive influence of the Dominican Father Henry Flanagan who he described as "a renaissance man" with a particular interest in art. However, his sojourn in Newbridge ended prematurely when he was expelled in 6th Year after being caught while on a nocturnal adventure. Himself and an accomplice had copied a master key and would regularly head off after hours to the local tennis hops. While both were caught, the accomplice, a key member of the senior rugby team, did not share his fate. An injustice that still rankles.
But this expulsion was destiny shaping his ends. His parents sent him to Dublin to complete his secondary education at a crammer called Blackrock Academy on Upper Mount Street. This school was run by the colourful William Martin and contained a motley collection of students, male and female, whose behaviour had been found wanting in more staid establishments. His route to this new school took him past the College of Art in Kildare Street. Gale remembers being impressed by the bohemian brigade that emerged daily from this location. They seemed "freedom personified" to the closeted boarding-school boy. This planted an ambition: "I wanted to be one of them". His father however had other ideas and secured him a job as a management trainee with the Rank Organisation in Phibsboro. Drawn towards Rank's advertising department and its graphic designers he ascertained that the route to such work also lay in the College of Art. This stiffened his resolve and the aspiring artist, after a year of servitude, escaped to freedom and art school in 1968.
While he enjoyed a couple of years of steady, if conventional, tuition there - his progress was arrested by the series of student protests and strikes that brought chaos to his last two years. Formal tuition was disrupted and the students were forced to look after themselves. Sharp-eyed observers of Reeling in the Years can catch a glimpse of Gale amongst protesting art students at the time - sporting a hair style that only Guggi could envy. Some of the teachers stuck with the students. Gale speaks particularly appreciatively of Charlie Cullen. "Carey Clarke taught me how to draw an eye but Charlie Cullen had empathy".
While still at College, Gale had two works accepted for the 1971 Exhibition of Living Art so the tyro artist began to attract notice. Gerald Davis gave himself and John Devlin a two-man show in 1972 while they were both still at college. He was subsequently recruited by Bruce Arnold, who attended his Graduate show the following year, and this led to his first solo show at the Neptune Gallery in 1974. Following the demise of the Neptune Gallery, Gale was keen to join Taylor Galleries, a favoured destination for aspiring artists. He spotted his opportunity after the opening of the Living Art show in 1980. He was drinking with the various attendees in the Henry Grattan on Baggot Street where he espied John Taylor at the bar. Emboldened by a few pints he approached Taylor - a gallerist notorious for being immune to the entreaties of artists - and declared: "I was thinking of joining your gallery. What do you think?". Taylor, perhaps mellowed by his surroundings, surprisingly agreed: "yes, that seems like a good idea" and he was taken on board. In 1982 he was also selected as one of the original members of Aosdana. The cnuas was a great boost to the artist at the time. While he sold well between 1974 and 1980, the following decade was a grim time for artists. He had a growing family and it was a timely supplement to the meagre income he derived from art and driving the local school bus. These days he can comfortably manage without it. "I haven't drawn it for many years".
Martin Gale's has been called a hyper-realist, a super-realist, and even a surrealist. However he prefers to refer to himself as a realist painter and the painters he admires most such as Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper and David Hockney are all realists in their own varied ways. Closer to home he feels an affinity with the work of Colin Harrison, another realist. But Gale is a realist with a difference. He does not paint what he sees before him as a photo-realist such as John Doherty would do. It's realism refined and excluding, omitting the fine detail of photo-realism. It's plainly artifice, reality slightly out of kilter - twilight zone in the midlands. In a recent interview Gale explained his modus operandi. "The paintings are all fictions - this is not a slice of reality. I gather a set of ingredients and put them all together". If you look at Guest from his current exhibition at Taylor Galleries all the differing elements that make up the painting were encountered locally and stored in his memory bank for future use. The planes overhead came from observing the Kildare gliding club's activities, the spreading chestnut tree is about 200 yards from his home and the woman in her blue finery was spotted at a wedding a few months earlier - observing perhaps a match she didn't approve of. These disparate elements all existed as separate images that he had sketched or photographed. After they had marinaded in his imagination for a period he brought them together to create this image of something afoot in a rural setting.
A characteristic Martin Gale painting contains a preoccupied figure, or figures, in a landscape. He believes that "people are always drawn to paintings with other people in them". He still paints landscapes and finds them a good way of easing a creative block. "If you're stuck, paint a landscape - it's keeping with the language". His natural habitat is the mid-lands - the area surrounding his home near Ballymore-Eustace where he has lived for over 30 years. His subject matter is rooted in what he encounters on his daily round. He goes for regular walks with his amiable collies and will usually have a camera or a sketch pad with him. There he captures and stores images of the fields, the woods, and the local characters for possible future use.
It's not surprising that Hopper is one of Gale's favourite artists. They share a penchant for inserting preoccupied figures into their paintings - Gale's outside and rural, Hopper's inside and urban. In both cases there is a feeling you are watching a still from an unfolding drama. "I like", he says, "to provide a hint of a narrative without spelling it out" - leaving space for the imagination. Something has happened or something is about to happen. A more overtly unsettling piece from the current show, Halloween - Out Early, illustrates this. It shows two children walking down a country lane - overshadowed by trees and looming hedgerow. One wears a sinister Venetian mask - adding a touch of weirdness. The headlights of a car approach. It's twilight and something wicked this way comes.
When discussing other artists Gale surprisingly cited the Sligo-based artist Sean McSweeney as "a great influence on me". Their styles could hardly be more different. However, Gale admires him for his "love affair with the landscape" and for demonstrating that artists "don't have to be cool and detached". It's clear that Gale shares this passion for his surroundings and is creating a memorable record of his encounters with it.
Taylor Galleries,
Dublin,
Mon-Fri: 10am-5.30pm
Sat: 11am-3pm
tel: 01 676 6055
John P. O'Sullivan
Monday, March 31, 2014
James Hanley - Souvenirs
A slightly edited version of this piece appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 30 March 2014
James Hanley is the very model of an establishment painter. A bastion of the RHA, a member of Aosdana and on the board of the National Gallery. He's perhaps best known for his portraits of figures from official Ireland - prominent politicians, garlanded professors and august old painters. He's the one who immortalised Bertie Aherne in oil - the bland and benign figure he portrayed is an ambiguous legacy. He's also done some fine nude studies over the years. This show sees him move away from his usual concerns to give us a series of paintings based on well-known locations encountered on his travels around the world - the standardised blue-bordered format suggests picture postcards in oil. While these are efficient well-wrought pieces there is an absence of struggle or expression in them - Paddy Graham he ain't, nor would want to be I expect. An exception to this is his minimalist study of Auschwitz. The lookout towers, the box car, and the shadowy figures moving in the mist capture the essence of that bleak and blighted spot.
RHA Ashford Gallery
Mon-Sat: 11am-5pm
Wed: 11am-8pm
Sun: 12pm-5pm
tel: 01 661 2558
John P. O'Sullivan
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