DUBLIN TRIP

EXHIBITION RECAP

About a week ago I made a quick trip over to Dublin and visited a few exhibitions. In the intervening days I’ve managed to pick up some abhorrent stomach virus so for my own clarity I think I’ll discuss only two of the exhibits here:

IMMA Collection Freud Project
Irish Museum of Modern Art
http://www.imma.ie/en/page_237084.htm

I find it sometimes takes the sustained experience of multiple pieces to partially comprehend an artist’s work, and I certainly left this exhibition (of 50 pieces) with a newfound appreciation and something of a more profound understanding for Lucian Freud.

The content was quite mixed, with both paintings and etchings represented and various subject matter across the mediums.

Reflection (Self Portrait), 1985, Oil on Canvas

Included in the exhibit were one unfinished painting and an etching plate. As an artist, I feel preconditioned to place value and intrigue on medium and process, and seeing these objects, along with some telling descriptions regarding certain paint colours, is truly fascinating. Much has already been written about Freud’s long and labour intensive live sittings, but seeing behind the scenes is always inspiring to me. The collection spanned three floors of the outer building at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, one of my all time favourite galleries.

Eithne Jordan: Tableau
Hugh Lane Gallery
https://www.hughlane.ie/past/1667-eithne-jordan-tableau

Before this exhibition, I was unaware of the work of Irish artist Eithne Jordan. Her work consisted of mostly small paintings of uninhabited interiors. I’ve had my paintings described as having ‘Irish colours’ quite a few times, and, looking at Jordan’s work I can say the same. The subject matter is often functional rooms. The image included here is one that caught my attention, some part due to the projector displaying a little error message to the bottom right and also due to my fondness for the desktop as a great revelator.

Conference Room II, 2017, 50 X 65cm, Oil On Linen

Although you lose the sense of ‘scale’ of the objects in the painting, something about removing people from the composition has always felt important to me. In an article in the latest Irish Arts journal, Jordan explains:

‘…if I introduced [a figure] then the painting became about the figure, not the space or the structures’

Personally, much of my work has evolved from painting gamescapes typically devoid of figures. This aspect of my own work has always been important. Like I’m capturing a moment before something wild and unknown going to happen as it typically does in such games. Perhaps I’ll write a little more on this in a future post as I have some thoughts evolving on the subject.

Elsewhere in the article, I read that work for another exhibition was explicitly completed for Butler Gallery in Kilkenny. This work focused on random findings while walking around a small town in rural Ireland. This resounded with me as I had dabbled with this in the past, and I am looking to develop a series of paintings about small town life to compliment a larger 3D game piece.

Watertower II, 2017, Oil On Linen, 50 X 65cm