He'll Be on the Fiddle, I'll be on the Brush

This profile appeared in an edited form in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on 26 July 2015

 

Mick O'Dea, a founding member of the Independent Artists group, caused consternation amongst his fellow contrarians when he accepted the offer of membership of the RHA in 1993. "Nobody had ever elected me to anything before so I said why not." His friends were horrified: "It was the equivalent of someone taking the king's coin in their eyes or a doctrinaire Republican becoming a Free Stater." A hint there of another volte face by another man associated with East Clare. O'Dea has no qualms about his defection. He describes the current RHA "as being an amalgam of the Living Art, the Independent Artists, with a touch of the old Oireachtas" and believes it has absorbed the diversity promoted by those organisations. This seems a valid assertion when you consider the range of exhibits and styles in the recent annual shows, although traces of the old academy still linger in those leaden formal portraits and in the occasional bouts of incest where academicians paint each other. O'Dea's recent elevation to the presidency of the RHA follows 30 years of energetic engagement with the Irish art scene both as artist and teacher.

Born in Ennis, O'Dea inherited a work-ethic from his parents who from modest origins built up a business encompassing a pub, a grocery shop and a farm. An influential art teacher, Jim Hennessy, at St. Flannan's College pointed him in the direction of NCAD. He chose to avoid the more obvious choice of Limerick College of Art as he knew that being so close to home would entail pub duty at weekends. "I wanted to get as far away from Ennis as I could." Following graduation at NCAD he immediately began teaching night classes there and took part time work elsewhere including King's Hospital and St. Edmundsbury Hospital - the mental health facility. He was involved with Brian Maguire and Theresa McKenna in setting up and teaching the Art in Prison programme and for a period taught art to both the Provisionals and the INLA in Portlaoise. He also taught at Dun Laoghaire College of Art for five years. All the while O'Dea was painting and honing his talent but was biding his time. "All my work in education ensured that I wasn't dependent on the art market and could develop my voice as an artist free from commercial pressure". But he was determined not to turn into a full-time teacher by succumbing to the siren call of the pension. He was given the perfect opportunity when he was elected to Aosdana. The resultant Cnuas cut him loose and in 1999 he gave up teaching and became a full-time artist.

This has been his life since that date. It hasn't always been easy. "For me the boom time wasn't a particularly good time. My main way of surviving has been portrait commissions." This uneasy survival is reflected in the number of galleries he has been associated with. After leaving NCAD he was keen to show at the Lincoln Gallery where fellow Independent Artists gathered. However after a few group shows he wasn't offered any further encouragement and through the efforts of Charlie Brady he got his first solo show in Taylor Galleries in 1983. It was very successful: "Dr. John Cooney came in and he bought a swathe of them. I took it for granted. This is what happens." The exhibition consisted of landscapes and rural scenes including cattle. His parents had always been supportive of his career choice but this success particularly resonated with his father. "When he thought of the time and effort he had to put in getting a bullock ready for market and compared it to the money I made from a painting of one he decided there must be something in this game." But disillusion was to follow this auspicious start as subsequent shows attracted scant attention and he decided to change galleries when Taylor Galleries was slow to schedule a new show. He moved on to the Rubicon for a period and following his election to the RHA he began to show at that venue. He also found a sympathetic home at the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery and has been showing with him for the past 14 years - culminating in his striking trilogy of exhibitions dealing with the aftermath of the 1916 Rising: Black and Tan, Trouble, and The Split.

One of the reasons for O'Dea's erratic relationship with commercial success may be his insistence on trying new things. Many successful artists, in Ireland and elsewhere, have a signature style so that when you buy a piece its recognisable as being by that specific artist. Everyone, for example, recognises a Felim Egan. With O'Dea it's not so easy. You might get get toy soldiers, confrontational nudes, portraits, historical tableaux, landscapes and even cardboard sculptures. "My model was always Picasso" he says in explanation of this eclectic approach. "I liked the way that after Cubism he moved on to neo-classicism." Despite O'Dea's cleaving to the academy his artistic influences are from further afield. While his work is figurative he doesn't look to Orpen or to Keating but rather to German Expressionism - especially Kokoschka, Auerbach, and Schiele. The first-named perhaps predominates as an influence but Édaín, an expressive and sexually frank series of nudes he did in 1998, is positively Schielesque. By way of contrast he has a fine portrait of Brian Friel in the National Gallery.

A recurring feature of the Irish art landscape is the bitter chorus of disaffected artists whose work has failed to make it into the annual RHA show. O'Dea is very open about the matter. "It's very difficult to get in." This year there were 2,600 works submitted and only around 14% got through. These made up around 60% of the show. The other 40% is made up of work by the academicians and selected artists. The latter group is selected by the council that oversees the annual show. One of the benefits of having selected artists is that they tend to submit larger works knowing that they will be accepted. "otherwise the show would look like a stamp collection". O'Dea sees the occasional rejection entailed by the process as being part and parcel of an artist's lot. He points to his own experience with the Royal Ulster Academy (RUA). "In 2011 I was an invited artist. In 2012 I was an adjudicator. In 2013 I won the RUA Portrait Prize. In 2014 I was rejected. In 2015 I will submit again." A lesson there for all artists.

O'Dea's no nonsense approach to art is refreshing. He brings a rural authenticity into an area where urban preciousness often thrives. His impending gig at the Kilkenny Arts Festival is an exercise in demystification. It is also an indication of someone who is comfortable in his own skin and confident in his craft. For two weeks he will attend various events (concerts, plays etc.) and set up an easel to record the performers during the shows. "I'll be an embedded reporter using drawing as a media." The day after the performance he will select a participant for a more detailed painting in the studio he has set up in James Stephens Barracks. The studio will be open to the public for one and a half hours each afternoon from 9-16 August. He has already lined up Garry Hynes and Dearbhla Molloy for these sessions. He also hopes to enlist his cousin the fiddle player Martin Hayes who's performing at the Festival. "He'll be on the fiddle and I'll be on the brush." His finished portraits and sketches will be on display in a range of venues around the city.

Seeing O'Dea looking healthy and energetic in his RHA studio it's difficulty to imagine that it's just over a year since the horrific accident that nearly killed him. A pedestrian absorbed on his mobile phone walked out in front of his bike on O'Connell Street. O'Dea slammed on his newly serviced brakes and was sent somersaulting over the handlebars. He landed on his back and ruptured his spleen. Only the proximity of the Mater Hospital and some quick thinking fellow cyclists saved his life as he had suffered a massive internal bleed. Apart from having to take care of himself a bit more (" I mind the drink and take a small daily dose of antibiotics") there are no long-term effects. "I feel that I've had another chance in life." He had no hesitation in taking on the demanding role of President less than nine months later. "I feel that it's a very worthy endeavour". He sees the RHA as "a strong, robust institution run for artists that is trying to get the best artists as members." This is not always possible. When I queried the omission of certain artists from the roster of members he responded that: "Being elected to the RHA is not just an honour like being made a member of Aosdana. Now that you've been elected you must roll up your sleeves." Participation in the activities of the RHA is "an absolute requirement." This doesn't suit certain artists. O'Dea himself set a sterling example by becoming the first Principal of the revived RHA School in 2006. He is determined to make things happen during his term in office. In addition to engaging with a younger generation of Irish entrepreneurs to help reduce the RHA's considerable loan burden, he is keen to expand the programme of events in the building in Ely Place by developing the extensive basement area. He also sees his role as someone who will raise the profile of art in Ireland where he feels it lags behind other art forms through media neglect. He bemoans the absence of a supportive figure like Mike Murphy. "Within the popular media there's a general dumbing down and an omission of the visual arts - a lot of it has to do with the presenters and their priorities. We don't have a BBC4 to counteract this. There's no visual arts on the Saturday shows." He would like to see artists like Imogen Stuart contribute to the national debate. "She has a lot to say." So has this hard-working son of County Clare whose robust stewardship at the RHA should help raise the voice of Irish art and claim back some of the territory ceded to the more aggressively marketed arts.

 

 

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Paddy Graham and Vincent Price

An edited version of this profile appeared in the Sunday Times Culture magazine on the 12 April 2015.

Patrick Graham recounts with amusement a story about his early reputation in Dublin art circles. Confronted by one of his more fraught canvases in the Hugh Lane Gallery, a viewer confided to his companion: "poor Paddy, he's obviously very ill." This anecdote captures the common view at the time that Graham's often alarming and visceral paintings must be the incontinent spewings of a tortured psyche. Far from it. His art has evolved from his extensive reading in philosophy, especially Martin Buber, Nietzsche and Kirkegaard. These influences have led him towards the great romantic subjects: sexuality, death, and religion. He believes that art "is part of an older history made by those who saw in the dark". His paintings are essays about being and nothingness - about the religious and sexual antics of his stricken subjects as they flail about against a bleak grey background that suggests the Midlands skies of his youth. In his current show Away at John P. Quinlan's gallery at the Triskel, Graham continues his broadcasts from the brink of the abyss. Note the Sacred Hearts, the agonised self-portraits, the poignant sketch of the family rosary, the blood-red nudes, and the recurring references to mysteries. The Lamb of God is in contention with the sins of the world.

Graham's career has been a triumph - far from the myth of it being blighted by his alcoholism and occasional incarceration. He's a hard-working, successful painter, with an international reputation, living in domestic harmony in Dun Laoghaire. He has a keen interest in sport, especially rugby. (When we met he recounted, with the relish of a true fan, a recent encounter with Ciaran Fitzgerald.) He hasn't had a drink for nearly forty years and he paints every week day. He's a member of Aosdana ("a peripheral one" he says) and has work in the permanent collections of both IMMA and the Hugh Lane Gallery. He's not a big fan of the RHA but showed there when invited by David Crone. He is an outsider however in his healthy skepticism about all art clubs, academies and associations. He refused to show at the Exhibition of Living art in its time and even became skeptical of the Independent Artists group, although he did show with them for a period. He maintains that "the new Academy is the old Academy, but just a little more clever in the way it dresses and uses its voice in the very politicised world of contemporary art."

Born in Mullingar in 1943 his early childhood was marred by a series of family disasters. His father went to England when he was four and the family saw little of him thereafter. "Your father had a glint in his eye and was a rogue in his britches " Graham remembers being told years later by an old woman who stopped him in the street. His mother "scraped a living" for her young family for a while but then contracted TB and spent some time in a sanatorium. Graham was sent to live with his grand parents. He subsequently contracted rheumatic fever and became so sick that he couldn't walk and was confined to bed for nearly a year. In his confinement he became a voracious reader and started to draw using whatever materials came to hand. This reading habit and interest in art was carried on later with the help of an aunt who was the local librarian. He consumed books about art and artists. "When I was about ten I discovered Modigliani."

He went to school at the local technical college where his talent for drawing was spotted early by a sympathetic teacher, Dermot Larkin. Even now, talking to the artist more than 50 years later, his gratitude is palpable. He worked with Larkin every evening after class becoming in effect his apprentice. "Larkin taught me to be a watcher, a mixer, a colourist, a cartoon-maker and a scene painter. I remember copying Manet at 13." Graham's talents led him to achieve first place in Ireland in his Group Certificate art exam. Larkin was also influential in getting the precocious young artist a scholarship to the National College of Art. Blessed with painting skills and fluency of line, his prodigious natural talent meant he could already turn out effortlessly a polished academic study. He went straight from foundation year to second year. Money was tight with an absentee father, but Graham stuck it out and acknowledges the sympathetic support there of John Kelly and Maurice MacGonigal. He recalls his first visit to the life drawing class where the young country boy ran from the room in fright: "I hadn't seen a naked woman in my life." Such innocent days. He soon adjusted to his new environment and his path in life seemed set fair. "I was told by John Kelly that I'd be in the academy (RHA) by twenty-one."

But then came the fall. He recounts how an Emil Nolde exhibition came to Dublin and it revealed to the young painter the error of his ways. It showed him that art could be a vehicle for personal expression and that the academic painting was not real art at all. "I saw an Emil Nolde exhibition that absolutely destroyed me as a performer. I now knew I could no longer make art as a conscious aesthetic act." This revelation led to a cessation of painting and a general questioning. It also led to the pub. He discovered the delights of O'Donoghue's, Grogan's and McDaid's and spent endless hours debating the "what is art" question rather than exercising his talents. He met a wealthy American woman and they got together and revelled in the drunken bohemian life of Dublin in the Sixties. "It was", he recalls, "a great time for failed geniuses". His lost years followed and he did little painting between leaving art college in 1963 and 1974. "I was going in and out of mental hospitals". He remembers slipping into a coma in the Wicklow Hotel and being carried out to an ambulance. The breakthrough came in 1974 when a young psychiatrist suggested that he deal with his life as art: "make some drawings about your experiences here." He embarked on a series of studies of a patient called Joe and the resultant work became his first solo show at the Emmet Gallery. It was entitled "Notes from a Mental Hospital and Other Love Stories." He finally gave up the drink in 1978 and went from being one of the first patients at the Rutland Centre to becoming one of its mentors for alcoholics. He also met his future wife there. She's a psychologist and the artist maintains that "she's been a great source of balance and evenness."

His next tentative steps back into the art world came with the help of Trevor Scott who offered him some teaching hours at the Dun Laoghaire College of Art. He moved into a small studio in Royal Terrace West where a neighbour was the artist Brian Maguire. With Maguire's support he got into the Lincoln Gallery and began to show with the Independent Artists. A sympathetic review by Michael Kane helped the recovering artist on his way and soon he was a regular part of the Dublin art scene. His work however was difficult and not exactly designed for suburban walls, so sales were not great. He remained dependent on his teaching hours in Dun Laoghaire and later at DIT.

A chance occurrence in the early Eighties altered radically the trajectory of Graham's career. The actor and influential art collector Vincent Price came to Dublin on a cruise and was waiting outside the Lincoln Gallery one day when Leon De Sachy arrived to open it. He proceeded to buy three large paintings, removing them from their frames before he returned to his boat in the Alexandra Basin. Subsequently Price wrote to the artist and encouraged him to come to LA and show at the first LA International Art Fair, saying that "this stuff is essential for LA". Graham scraped together the money, aided by Vincent Ferguson from the Hendriks Gallery. He found himself at an enormous show amongst the elite of the international art world. His modest space at the periphery of the fair was ostentatiously favoured by Price and his extensive entourage, including his wife the actress Cora Browne. The attention of such a prominent collector did not go unnoticed. Graham was signed up by the Jack Rutberg gallery in LA and soon acquired a substantial following amongst the art lovers of that city. This is a rich seam of patronage that he continues to mine to this day, although sadly Vincent Price is long gone.

For a man who comes across initially as mild-mannered, even diffident, Graham has got some acerbic views on the Irish art scene and is not shy about expressing them. The provincialism of our artists is a particular bête noire. "They still retain the idea that if we imitate international art we become international. No. If you're from Mullingar, you're fucking international." Echoes there of another Patrick. And like Kavanagh, Graham uses his youthful experiences in rural Ireland to create art of universal import.

 

 

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