Stone Wall, Country Road

 

Stone Wall, Country Road - oil on canvas - 40"x30" - sold

Mapping the emotive, evocative and accidental

 

On occasions I have, over the past few years, written about my work or in connection with my work, but I do feel the artist doesn't really control the meaning of their work. People bring to bear their own experience while viewing or living with an art work.
In saying that, I do believe it is easier to talk about your work and interpret it when there exists a considerable gap of time between you and the work created. And I also believe that the artist does have control over their output, and what they choose put out into the world during their lifetime.

The work I have begun to create here in the Burren this year is concerned with 'place'.
I am painting in series, so as to investigate the idea of place, and what that might mean to me.
One of the reasons for this investigation and exploration of 'place' is quite biographical, as I have lived somewhat of a nomadic artists life over the years and have never 'settled down'. Even with my wife by my side we are still to find a 'permanant place' to 'settle'.
I have spent over four years now working out in the west of Ireland, and before this spent a lot of time in Thailand, travelling light and spending extended periods of time in the one place, usually in quite remote areas. Perhaps a bit of a loner's existence, but it offered me the chance to draw, paint, develop my art and get to explore Ireland and many other countries over extended periods.

In my early expressive figure in landscape pieces, the motif was always this lone being surrounded by the vastness of landscape, or captured somewhat, in a smaller dimensional or architectural space.
Working in rural locations has always spurred bouts of great artistic creativity for me.
With these current paintings I am creating a map, or mapping out my experience. There are many different ways to create a map, and I am in a way, intimately documenting my findings here over time. I do feel it is important for the artist to know his subject intimately.
That is what this series of paintings might convey, my experience, the surrounding nature, a shelter and the absence of people.

Perhaps the shelters, houses, walls, cottages and barns that feature in my current work are an extension of 'the being' in my earlier work? A humans print or thumb mark on the landscape? These empty places, spaces and ruins that interest me are also part of a vanishing history in the Irish landscape, quietly saying, 'I was here'. It's this feeling of a scarcely populated space, with only clues or impressions of the people who may have been there over the years that drives me ahead, searching for meaning.

Looking forward to sharing this work with you over the coming months.

Richard

Cultivating a Sense of Place

Arrived back in the heart of the Burren on Monday last, after a three month search for a suitable studio space in Dublin did not bear fruit! I had envisaged working close to my family home in Malahide since my return from New York, and did, after some time, find a location in Howth which I was really keen on. I had hoped to secure a deal on the place but the landlord wanted to much rent - double what I was willing to pay for the run down house!
Needless to say I was a little distraught, as I had invested a good bit of time and energy into finding a suitable place in Dublin, and had hoped for a positive outcome. But it is amazing how things work out - Now my feeling is that my work will benefit hugely from being out west again. I know I can work well in this place and sense a strong drive building. The house in Howth would have taken up a lot of my time just getting the place ready to work in - but out here I am free, and know I can work here! Already started a new body of work and am going to focus on developing this over the coming months in preparation for my next show in New York in 2013.

The Cottage.

The Studio.

My Neighbour.

Ballyvaughan is the most idyllic village. I love being back here. The peace and quietness of the surrounding landscape coupled with a wonderful community of people makes for a great space to 'cultivate a new sense of place'.

Self Portrait, at the Easel

Self Portrait, at the Easel - oil on canvas - NFS

Detail of brush work from 'Self Portrait at the Easel' below

Full image to follow shortly.

Practicing Silence

Practicing Silence,
Self portrait with Grandmother's mirror and drawing easel - oil/panel - NFS

Self Portrait with Brush and Pictorial Device

Self Portrait with Brush and Pictorial Device - oil on canvas - 24"x18" - NFS

Over the past few weeks I have been interested in returning to the 'self portrait'.

It has been a very inwardly rewarding experience, while at the same time allowing me the freedom to experiment with my growing appreciation for application and gesture.

I have spent time gathering images together of the many self portraits I have created over the years and look forward to share them along with some of the remembered emotions I felt while creating them with you soon.

Self Portraits can convey an emotive power of presence reaching beyond the confines of the canvas. They tell stories of time and timelessness. The methodology inherent in self portraits continues to employ and capture for me, the sublime fleeting moment. My continued method of painting 'from life' frees me from the sobering detachment of mechanical means of recording, and requires me to race and work fast which suits my personality. Hand, Eye, Heart, as David Hockney puts it!

This fluid piece was created in one session, with one brush.

I enjoy in it, the abstractions, paint surface and treatment, which I feel consistently shifts from image to paint, and paint to surface. The brush work is cursive yet powerful - plunging you and me into the realm of immediacy.

Alumnus Spotlight: Burren College of Art

As many of you know, I have spent quiet a bit of time working on developing my art in the Burren, County Clare, both in studio an out on location. Yesterday The Burren College of Art published the 5th issue of their newsletter which is circulated to over 1500 subscribers worldwide.

Anna Downes the colleges director of marketing and admissions recently approached me to ask if I would write a short commentary of my experience during my time spent there. I was of course delighted at the request and got to work on reminiscing about my time in residence.
Hope you enjoy this short written piece below, you can also view it here on the Burren College of Art Website:

Alumnus Spotlight: Richard Hearns


It is some time since I worked as an artist in residence at the Burren College of Art, but the feeling of place and the experience of that magical studio setting still remains strong. In May 2009 I made an application to work in studio at the college. My email was responded to promptly, and a date set to commence work. I will never forget arriving in the picturesque village of Ballyvaughan a week or so in advance to look into accommodation for the couple of months I would stay there. The first place I called was to the local parish church, at the recommendation of a neighbour of mine in my home town. It was there I met a giant of a man, Tom Connolly, who serves his local community as a taxi man, mechanic and allround 'go to guy'. After a brief walk I found myself peering through the window of the newly restored Vaughan's cottage, where I would be staying for the duration of my time in residence.
The studio appointment at the college was spacious and bright, and I was due to begin work in the coming days. The college is nestled under the foot hill of Cappabhaile, and at the same time, raised from the surrounding landscape. My first evening was spent peering out the cottage window at the road that runs up through the fields towards the college. I painted that scene of the road, that led my eye towards the unique round tower and surrounding college buildings.
The Burren is an unusual place to say the least, its landscape is full of contrasts, charming and rugged, rich and desolate, plentiful and barren. These sorts of contrasts are meaningful for me as a painter, because I deal with ratios of 'meaningful balance' all the time in my compositions. The play of light and dark, texture against non - texture , colour against colourlessness etc. All these factors make a painting come alive. Walking the quiet landscape and swimming in the sea was a most welcome rest and revitalizing activity during my time spent there. The Burren landscape offers the most spectacular walks, that I always felt inspired work, and helped generate ideas.
Connections were a big part of the overall experience that the time spent in the Burren College of Art offered me. The connections I made to the surrounding landscape, flowers and fauna. Connections made with the wonderful local community, and the hugely beneficial, important and meaningful connections I made with other artists from differing disciplines and places around the world. One such connection was made with artists Sean Naftel and his partner Erin Tracy, both of whom are based in the New York, another with Mary Fennell, a college lecturer in America who along with Sean and Erin have been great supports to myself and my wife during our recent trips to New York City.
I have continued developing my work since I first took up residence in the Burren, and have on many occasions returned to that special place to stay and paint for extended periods. It is a place I will continue to hold close to my heart, as I develop my art and career further. I have no doubt that all the wonderful friends and connections made there will continue to support and nurture my work for many many years to come. The Burren, on Ireland's west coast, holds a truly unique place in my heart. My personal relationship with the place continues to nourish me as an artist. It is a place we can connect, and reconnect once again to our creative spirit. Refreshed and new we spring forward!

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The Burren College of Art is an internationally recognised indepentant not-for-profit college specialising in undergraduate and graduate fine art education.
The PhD in studio art, master of Fine Art and Post Baccalauretate programmes are accredited by the National University of Ireland, galway and operated in association with the Royal College of art, London and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Continued Creativity amidst Adversity

This article was published yesterday in the Irish National Newspaper, the Sunday Business Post.
It tackles certain issues surrounding the economic downturn and how that might be affecting artists. Myself, along with words from Robert Ballagh, Oliver Sears and Noelle Campbell Sharpe talk about our personal, and in some cases very different experiences and interpretations around these issues.

Irish Artist Robert Ballagh and gallery owner Oliver Sears seem to be coming from the same place as myself. I make the point in this excerpt that the market during the boom had a controlling effect on the output of many artists and Oliver recognized the same curve or trend.

I would hope that you will be able to read the full article I was asked to composed entitled ' Continued Creativity amidst Adversity', in the near future.

To view and read, please click on the image to enlarge.

- Richard

Reflections, on New York City

Over the past weeks I have been thinking about what my recent three months spent living in New York City has meant to me, and how it might have influence on my current and future work.

I watched the city people, but not so much in crowds, it was the individuals that caught my eye, the people on their way home, or to work, at the subway, on street corners and park benches. Also the musicians, all the musicians that I passed each day, especially in the subway stations. The musicians to me, were like a metaphor of the cities beating heart, they and the sounds they carried became the colours reflected in all the surrounding glass and steel. The symmetry of the place defiantly had an affect on my composition, especially in my figure and plein air sketches, also the sketches and photographs I made took on a very strong grid like quality, a sort of unified separateness.
My time spent painting at the League did teach me many things also. How to look and fight for a subject, how to trust my instincts. It taught me many of the things not to do also! I hope most of all its taught me to find myself again and again through my work and to share that glimpse, my individual view of our world with others.

I am excited to start a concentrated and coherent a body of work with New York in mind.
I would have loved to make this work there on location, but I can still  more than sense the place. I have looked, witnessed, seen and felt, and now is my turn to group these various aspects of the city that captured me and bring them to form.
I will do this! Create the paintings that I feel tell the story of the city - At least my story, and the people and things I encountered.

- Richard

Low Rock, Malahide

Low Rock, Malahide - oil/panel - sold

A recent gestural and fluid plein air sketch in oils created close to my family home at Low Rock on Malahide beach.