RUA Annual Exhibition 2016

An edited version of this review appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine 6 November 2016

The Royal Ulster Academy's annual exhibition is usually a good opportunity to enjoy a panoramic view what's happening in the art scene north of the border and to spot some emerging talent. This year however the exhibition has a broader scope with a large number of selected artists and invited artists coming from south of the border. Conversely a number of the North's more established figures, and RUA members, are missing. Without running a fine comb through the exhibitors I notice that there's no Colin Davidson or Paul Seawright. Given the dearth of open submission shows in this country it's good to see the RUA casting its net so wide, with artists such as Karen Hendy from West Cork and Gavin Lavelle from Galway joining the many Dublin-based contributors.

There's a sombre side to the show. The  attractive and informative catalogue contains obituaries of seven members of the Academy who have died in the past 12 months. In addition to these texts, each of the deceased is remembered via two works in the exhibition. The best-known amongst them is Basil Blackshaw. He is represented by a fine portrait of his old friend the late T.P. Flanagan and by the very aptly chosen Big Brown Dog. Blackshaw was an animal lover and dog owner all his life and far preferred talking about his dogs than his art. In an interview a few years ago he was more animated about a champion greyhound he once owned than about any of his major paintings.The Irish art world is diminished by his passing.

 A feature of the exhibition is the large number of portraits, portrait busts, and generally figurative work on view. Poets and artists inspire a number of these. There's a bronze bust of a young Seamus Heaney and a ruddy and romanticised painting of Michael Longley holding a wren in one hand, some flowers in the other, and looking a tad embarrassed about it all. There's a very fine ceramic bust of Austin Clarke by Bob Sloan and nearby you can find his namesake the 1916 leader Thomas Clarke. Robert Ballagh has an austere painting of Brian O'Doherty (the erstwhile Patrick Ireland), a fellow artist who shares his interest in Irish politics. Hector McDonnell shows Neil Shawcross on a suitably red armchair amidst the contents of his studio. There's plenty of quirky and characterful portraits as well. Michael Connolly's Intern is a memorable study in gormlessness, Paul Bell's Wolf has a stolid menace, and Emily Scott's Filippa exudes character and elegance. There are so many good portraits it seems invidious not to name more. There's David McDowell's skilful pencil drawing Remember Me and Jackie Edward's burnished old man in The Heart That Asks. A few of the artists introduce a little light eroticism into the mix, these include Carol Graham's Iconic Allure of Light, and Kyle Barnes' Fixation.

 Of the many works relating to the human face or figure Francis O'Toole's One for Sorrow (above) stands out. This splendid, glowing, sinuous and troublingly ambiguous nude verily steals the show. O'Toole's meticulous painting devotes as much care and loving attention to the knots on the wooden floor as to the dimples on the subject's back.   Sculpture is very well served both in terms of quality and quantity. This seems to have been the result of a deliberate policy as most of the invited artists are well-known sculptors. As you walk into the gallery the first piece you encounter is Furrow by Eilis O'Connell, a small bronze that demonstrates those characteristic O'Connell qualities of perfect harmony and subtle suggestiveness. Further into the first gallery there's the powerful Woodquay Bull by John Behan and the playful The Visitor - a rampant bronze grasshopper by Deborah Brown that won the Mullan Gallery Award for best sculpture.The flag of abstraction is flown by Michael Warren with  Kireji, a blackened bronze slab with fissures, Stephen Deery's Deliverence, and Corban Walker with an intricate maze-like creation. Ann Butler's surreal white porcelain sewing machine and Peter Meanley's playful stoneware The Fisherman also catch the eye.

 There's plenty of paintings of the highest quality - these include The Garden Shed, an accomplished and painterly work by Clement McAleer, Breaking Wave, a fine brooding seascape by James Allen, Long Duree by Jennifer Trouton which won the Tyrone Guthrie Residency Award, Cormac O'Leary's Inisheer II, and Mick O'Dea's dramatic tour-de-force Study for the Burning of the RHA. There are two large lively works by Diarmuid Delargy and an uncharacteristically abstract piece by Neil Shawcross - the title Jazz is the clue to this freeform exercise. Our quiet woodlands are given their due by Keith Wilson with Being Here and Michael Wann's Woodland Shadow - the latter in charcoal, a medium not for the faint-hearted.

 Photography is not very well represented with less than a dozen works on show. Rory Moore's Brig Mary Jane, Westport-Baltimore 1847 is an evocation of the Great Famine. It shows a ruined and abandoned cottage against a brooding western sky. Aidan Crawley adds a further sombre note with Missing I - a study of the Somme landscape. In viewing a show with 329 exhibits it's hard to do justice to the eight video offerings which require more time to absorb than viewers usually have. Many of them can be sourced online for more leisurely perusal. Oona Doherty's Hard to be Soft featured the artist showing admirable litheness as she performed her expressive dance.

 Print does somewhat better than photography in terms of numbers. March is an accomplished lithograph by Elizabeth Magill, Margaret Mannion Kallen won the Nicholson Bass Printmaking Prize for Not a Walk in the Park, an etching and carborundum print, and Crona Gallagher produced a couple of charming copperplate etchings .

 There's plenty of fun to be had in this is an entertaining and eclectic show. You don't have to be a dog lover to enjoy Caroline Fellowes Obedience IV (a dog on a chair in a flood) which manages to be both surreal and poignant at the same time. And you'll surely smile at Stephen Johnston's photo-realist Cake in a Jar which earned him the KPMG Young Artist Award. The selection committee have done a good job in purging the show of the worthy landscapes and other stodgy fare that often dominate academy exhibitions.

 Ulster Museum
 Belfast


 John P. O'Sullivan
 November 2016

Edited with BlogPad Pro

RUA Annual Exhibition

Nineteen Eighty-four by Neil Shawcross

An edited version of this review appeared in the Sunday Times Culture Magazine on 26 October 2014.

 

Visitors to the Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) annual show from outside Belfast should consider the train. Arriving at Central Station you can stretch your legs by taking a 30-minute walk along a scenic stretch of the Lagan, admiring the doughty oarsmen and women as your proceed. Turn right into the Botanic Gardens and there you'll find the large, spanking new and well-appointed Ulster Museum. The RUA annual show was a moveable feast in terms of location for a number of years but since the Ulster Museum reopened in 2009 it has settled there. There are plans afoot for the RUA to secure a permanent home of its own in a five-story listed building on Ann Street but these will take some years to come to fruition.

Just as the Royal Hibernian Academy's (RHA) annual show gives us a panoramic view of the current state of Irish art, the RUA show provides an overview of what's happening in the North. There are differences in the selection process however. The RUA follow the Royal Academy (RA) model where there's a two stage selection process, rather than the more unwieldy RHA model where there's no preliminary stage. Stage one involves online shortlisting whereby images uploaded by entrants are viewed. About a third of these are shortlisted and then delivered to the Academy for actual viewing. A second selection then takes place and the academy displays around a third of these shortlisted works. There's another major difference with the RHA. The academicians of the RUA confine themselves to two pieces each. (Those over 75 are allowed a third, on the grounds, I suppose, of respect for the venerable.) Their Southern peers at the RHA can take advantage of an entitlement of up to seven pieces. For example at the last RHA show Thomas Ryan and John Behan displayed seven pieces each and others such as Liam Belton and Maeve McCarthy had six. This does tend to unbalance the RHA's annual show and make it less broadly representative than it could be. The Northern show is however smaller in scale, there are 304 works on view compared to 565 at the RHA.

The RUA has existed in one form or another since 1879. It started life modestly as The Belfast Ramblers' Sketching Club. This was the result of an initiative by John Vinycomb, a senior designer at a Belfast printing firm. It started with 16 members of his art department who had been students at the Belfast School of Art. In 1890, with increased membership, it expanded into The Belfast Art Society and in 1930 The Ulster Academy of Arts, with Sir John Lavery elected its first President. Finally, as part of the Festival of Britain in 1951, the Royal prefix was granted by King George VI and it became The Royal Ulster Academy of Arts.

This early link with the Belfast School of Art remains as strong as ever with works by its alumni and graduates making up a high proportion of the show. Southern artists are also well represented. In addition to those who get in through the open submission process, the academy has a policy of inviting a number of Southern artists every year. Those from the south who made it in through one route or another include Amelia Stein, Bernadette Kiely, Francis Matthews (who won the KPMG Young Artist Award), and Tadgh McSweeney. The president of the RUA Colin Davidson has enjoyed the distinction this year of showing at all three academy shows. In addition to paintings at the RUA, and the RHA, his fine portrait of Paul Muldoon was shown at the RA's annual summer show.

Entering the 5th floor gallery, divided into three large rooms, the first thing that catches the eye is Dermot Seymour's Hiberno Hare - a large oil featuring a hare with a bloody wound on its forepaw suspended over a mythic landscape. You may miss the metaphor here but it's a powerful image notwithstanding. Nearby Colin Davidson confounds expectations by supplanting his customary portrait with Cloud - a dreamy and subtle landscape. Photography is very well represented in the show. Notable is a characteristically chilling piece by Paul Seawright which owes much of its impact to its title. In the same room, it's hard not to laugh at Oliver Jeffers Ginger Hitler - as if redheads didn't get enough unjust abuse already. Or maybe that's the point. Leonora Neary's These Rooms Within are two dark, cryptic works that evoke that space where introspection occurs.

Moving into the second room you are engaged immediately by that splash of red that characterises Neil Shawcross. He has two large pieces that dominate the space. There are also two fine luxuriant abstracts by Brian Ferran, one of which garnered him the RUA Perpetual Gold Medal. This room also features Be by Amanda Brooke - a striking hanging sculpture of a flock of birds where the attendant shadows play a prominent role. A couple of the portraits in this room give one pause. If the one of Paul Muldoon set out to be a Dorian Gray version of the poet it certainly succeeded. Nearby the portrait of Andy Irvine seems to have sucked all the strength of character out of that interesting man and left us with a weak-looking musician in a contrived pose. Two photographs by John Roch Simons are amongst the best things on view. These evocative images of an old nun carry haunting suggestions of a life wasted. A couple of quirky portraits also linger in the mind: Sheena Malone's Untitled and Lenka Davidikova's Joker. Francis O'Toole's languorous Dormit, all lush colour and eroticism, would grace any bordello.

The third and furthermost of the three rooms, whether by accident or design, contains some of the weakest work. There are a number of insipid landscapes and a couple of sub-bucolic renditions of domestic animals. There are however some good deeds also in this naughty room. These include Light Reflection and Into the Dark by Sophie Aghajanian and three cool abstract bogscapes by Jean Duncan

In general the sculpture is the least successful part of the show. This is partly due to to unsympathetic way it is displayed. Much of it is laid out cheek to jowl on tables as in a craft shop. Perhaps, given the constraints of the space, it was not possible to display each piece on a separate plinth but the the resultant juxtapositions are often a bit jarring. The highlights include Francis Lambe's Terracotta Sea Bean, Adam May's ceramic Cusp and Kate Mac Donagh's mysterious and elegant Sidhe. Two pieces reward careful scrutiny: Claire Gibson's aptly named Reflections and Karen Gibson's Chernobyl Metryoshka Doll Set - the porcelain dolls depicting scenes that are far from playful.

Print work is well represented. Elizabeth Magill's award winning Venice is impressive and there are two cool and restrained works by Keith Wilson. Sarah Rogers' Return to Hospital and Margaret Arthur's encaustic mono prints Reflective and On Thin Ice also stand out. On the video front those who check out Sizzling Babes may be surprised that the title refers to bacon rather than bathing beauties. They will have to content themselves with watching playful pigs run about oblivious of their date with the frying pan.

Looking back over the Irish art scene for the past hundred years there's an argument to be made that Belfast has been its epicentre. Paul Henry was born there as was Sir John Lavery. In the middle of the 20th century George Campbell, Colin Middleton, Dan O'Neill, and Gerard Dillon all emerged, a couple of them from its meaner streets. A little later Basil Blackshaw appeared - a precocious talent born into a sporting family in nearby Glengormley, This show gives us an opportunity to observe how the sons (and daughters) of Ulster are living up to this illustrious heritage.

Ulster Museum

Belfast

Tue-Sun: 10am-5pm

Tel: 00 44 (0)28 90320819

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Portraits of the Artists 4: Basil Blackshaw

Basil Blackshaw - January 2013 (Paddy Benson)

This is my profile of Basil Blackshaw first published in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 27th January 2013:


Home is the Hunter

In rural Antrim, a few miles east of Lough Neagh, Basil Blackshaw is resting on his laurels.  His work may have slowed down to a trickle, but the esteem in which he is held continues to grow.  His reputation is set to be further enhanced by the exhibition Blackshaw at 80, currently running at the RHA.  This show features a representative selection of paintings from across his career chosen by the artist himself and Dr. Riann Coulter, curator of the F. E. McWilliam gallery in Banbridge.  In March it will move on to the Gordon Gallery in Derry as part of the UK City of Culture programme.

Blackshaw lives with his personable partner Helen Faloon in a warm and well-maintained old farmhouse off a side road near Antrim town.  His once thriving community of dogs is reduced to one, an elderly and affectionate Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Jet.  He enjoys a leisurely pipe after indulging his sweet tooth with a slice of rich coffee cake as he mulls over his memories.  He is reserved but friendly, smiling a lot and frequently bursting into laughter when recounting some amusing anecdote from his past.  Memories of the late Tom Caldwell and Markey Robinson were a particular source of humour for him. With some prompting from Helen he told a scabrous story about Markey that illustrated that artist's infamous capacity for foul language.  His response to any probing questions about his art is equivocal and often downright contradictory. In an interview with Brian McAvera in 2002 he maintained that Franz Marc had an influence on his horse paintings.  And you can surely see a connection in their use of colour.  However Marc's work seems much more controlled and not at all like Blackshaw's looser more painterly style.  When I brought it up he laughed and said there was no connection whatsoever.  Take your pick.

He is coy about influences generally but a tour of the current show will give a flavour of these.  There's his tribute to Cezanne in Cezanne's Gardener, his window paintings nod towards Rothko, his strings of horses at exercise suggest Degas, and you often see hints of Charlie Brady, especially in Studio.  Blackshaw is a master draughtsman and most of his work, especially his horse and dog paintings, are realistic depictions of these creatures.  One piece, Big Brown Dog, certainly isn't.  It's more heraldic than realistic, as Brian Fallon noted in his excellent 2012 essay.  He wasn't forthcoming when I queried this anomaly.  He's not keen on interpretation, preferring to emphasise the primary visual encounter.  One particular work, Anna on a Sofa, begs for analysis.  It features his erstwhile wife, Anna Ritchie sitting, arms folded tightly, jammed up to one side of an otherwise empty striped sofa. Again Blackshaw doesn't rise to bait - just smiling gnomically when I brought it up.  Their marriage break up was a difficult time for him.

Blackshaw may seem an amiable and easy-going character but he gets much exercised by the public airing of any work he deems inferior and he took a keen interest in the selection  for the show.  He also expressed himself as displeased that a substantial biography published a few years back by Eamonn Mallie contained pictures of work with which he had become dissatisfied.  His partner Helen chided him good-naturedly saying that it was his own fault as he was asked for his input but only took an interest when it was too late.

He's much more forthcoming on the subjects of dogs and horses.  He regrets not having more dogs these days but as he walks with the aid of a stick he cannot exercise them as before.  He trained greyhounds for about 12 years and had much success not just at local tracks but in  big races at Shelbourne Park and Harolds Cross.  He was unlucky not to win the Oaks on one occasion and spoke fondly of those days:  "Dateline was the best dog we ever had" he recalled, "she won bitch of the year that year".   Before he began to sell his art, dogs were his main source of income.  Unlike his fellow artists Bacon and Freud, Blackshaw didn't gamble.  He is too much the shrewd country boy for that foolishness I suspect.  His real affection for these creatures can be seen in the delightful A Dog and Two Men (see illustration).  Here two men chat while the dog sits close to one (Blackshaw himself) and gazes up at him adoringly.


Blackshaw's life has not just been a rural idyll surrounded by God's creatures.  It has been described by Brian Fallon as "an epic of survival".  He has fought and survived alcoholism, a painful separation, and a major studio fire (in 1985). The fire destroyed a large number of paintings and drawings (including a cherished horse painting by his father) and knocked the stuffing out of him for a period.  He particularly regretted the loss of four easels.  The fire did give him the opportunity to build a new studio without a view.  The absence of windows in this new studio, all light coming from skylights, meant he didn't get distracted by the scenery around him as before.  A further stimulus to get on with it came in the form of the model Jude Stephens. She was his muse for a whole series of nude studies which took him away from his landscapes and animals.  Her essay in Basil Blackshaw - Painter by Brian Ferran (published in 1995) is a charming evocation of an unworldly man.

Many artists move to the country and pursue their careers from idyllic locales,
with romantic views of the Atlantic perhaps, or amid the rugged grandeur of West Cork. There they live within their creative bubbles - occasionally emerging to astonish the city with their visions. Blackshaw is different - he is of the countryside as well as being in it. His horses, dogs and fighting cocks are not mere objects selected for our visual delectation.  They are the creatures of his daily round. The colourful fighting cocks were an enthusiasm for many years.  He trained them for their bloody battle and still speaks proudly of his success in this arena.  His landscapes are inspired by Dromora and the areas around his home where he enjoyed hunting and point-to-points.  In his time he has been better known to many of his neighbours as a trainer of dogs or a breeder of horses than as an artist. The practical horny-handed farmers of South Antrim would have little time in any case for a pursuit they would have deemed effete and worse, unprofitable.  Jude Stevens' essay tells a wonderful story of a trip to the "meat man" for dog food with Blackshaw. The trip culminated in a shack behind a ramshackle cottage which was was straight out  the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  The floor was carpeted with congealed blood, swarms of blue bottles buzzed around her head, and in the gloom she could see carcasses of dead cattle in varying stages of dismemberment.  Blackshaw was quite at home there, chatting to the bloodied butcher, and they departed with a package of "warm meat".


Considering what a horsey country we are it's amazing that so few artists seem drawn to the subject.  True there are a few specialists, such as Peter Curling, but in terms of major figures it's hard to think of anyone other than Jack Yeats. He shares with Blackshaw a feel for the world of racing particularly.  In the current show we get horses in a variety of guises: coming a cropper in a steeplechase, exercising in strings, surreal in purple or red, or, as in Night Rider, conveying an sinister cowboy.  One giant piece,The Fall, is a virtuoso performance.  This charcoal and oil work shows a crashing fall, the horse  landing on its head as the jockey flies through the air, hands braced for impact.  The energy of the calamitous moment perfectly preserved.  You also marvel at the use of charcoal in a picture of such scale.

You can't help but feel that Blackshaw prefers animals to people.  He has famously declared that "portrait painting is a nuisance".  Looking at his portrait of Arthur Gibney in the show you can see dead hand of a commission rather than heartfelt engagement.  Many of his portraits however are alive and engaging. Two that stood out were a thoughtful Brian Friel and a warm and vivacious Mary McGrath.


Blackshaw was a precocious talent.  He was doing commissions in his teens and was accepted for art college at the age of 16.  There he enjoyed the benign influence of the wonderfully named Romeo Toogood.  He thrived there and his career took off when he had a piece acquired by the Ulster Museum when he was 20.  He was also taken up early by Tom Caldwell, an astute judge of talent and an energetic dealer.



The sturm and drang of his boozing days with the likes of Dan O'Neill and Paddy Collins are but fond memories.  Helen tells stories of rescuing Blackshaw and O'Neill from Belfast during the troubles and running the gauntlet of army road blocks with the two drunken and garrulous artists.  He has long foresworn the drink.  Himself and Helen are plainly happy and at peace in their comfortable rural retreat.  Their walls are bedecked with an eclectic collection of paintings:  amidst his own pieces are works by friends past and present, such as Charlie Brady and Neil Shawcross.  There's also a  wonderful drawing of a boar by Elizabeth Frink.  One suspects Blackshaw will do little more painting. When I enquired about looking at his studio Helen said the heating was broken and that it was a bit dismal. A cursory look confirmed this.  He has no immediate plans to set foot in it.  Maybe spring will bring some inspiration, or his old friend Jude will call around and stir him into action.   But a man who has painted for nearly 70 years is surely entitled to take life easy.  His legacy is safe.