Retinal Red

Pompeiin Still-life 92x122cm

My most recently painted ‘Pompeiian Still life’; named after perusing  Mary Beard’s book on ancient Rome, with its inclusion of 3 small but stunning images of wall paintings from Pompeii:  has recently set me on a crazy spree of cadmium- red- saturated- compositions. 

In my youth I fell in love with those Pompeiian red wall frescoes that decked the walls of those men and women that inhabited that fateful Roman town.  Fuelled, and kept alive and kicking by looking and studying modernist paintings such as Matthew Smith’s Nude, Fitzroy Street No1, 1916  and Matisse’s Red Studio 1911  

Mattisse Red Sudio

Matthew Smith Nude 

Over the years many of my paintings have fallen into this bracket of using Cadmium Reds to the point of no-return, hence no excuses for my latest one.

Focus on Mirror-Mirror

Mirror-Mirror 46x46cm oil on canvas

A friend recently asked to use this image for a blog post she was putting up www.sophiebel.com , on make-up and her relationship with it.  She inadvertently got where I was coming from when I painted this little 46x46cm oil painting, part of my Scheherazade exhibition 2013.  I was thinking of fairy tales and storytelling for my show, and combined my obsession with mirrors and how we perceive ourselves or more to the point our relationship with a very one-dimensional view of our face, fixed before our eyes, in reverse, and reflected back with all the distractions of dusty light beams, sheen from the mirror surface itself, and its constricted frame to name a few, that it’s crazy to think that this is all that we are, or think, that this is all there is to us.  We put so much into this interrogation, we can feel empowered and boosted up by what we see or in contrast we can hyper-obsess about what is not good or what is missing. A fraction of a cm here or a lift there and everything will be sorted.  It’s such a deeply feral relationship… a face… It must be something to do with survival and bonding, so that we can, as helpless babies, cement our links with the one who will keep us alive.  I was in hospital for a prolonged stay as a toddler and because I didn’t understand why I was there, I didn’t take to the experience very well, but I do remember a particular nurse or ward sister’s face.  She was like an angel to me, her balanced, warm-toned face was my anchor and I still feel connected to her in a deeply spiritual way.  So a face can be more than it seems.  So maybe this is one of the reasons that we can use a mirror to either ground ourselves in a reassuring glance, or interrogate our image in a critical way to see whether we are worth the love that we all seek.

Whatever is happening I am truly hooked and will always use my mirror to reference and catalogue who I am.  And as for make-up I think the make-up industry knows all, as by  supplying us with the aids to conceal, draw-in, redefine and of course colour in …. We are all endlessly absorbed and fascinated!!!  

Christmas Show at The Doorway Gallery

my flower paintings going up the stairs

My paintings in the hall at The Doorway Gallery

Deirdre, me and Denise

I dropped by The Doorway Gallery 24 South Frederick St, Dublin 2,
to have a glass of mulled wine and a few tasty mince-pies, and of course a look at their Christmas Show.  It looked so inviting and Christmassy and thats just the outside with wreaths of holly berries and pine cones bedecking the Georgian red front door and railings.  Denise and Deirdre have done a wonderful job of themeing the show by colour, so my paintings were teamed with Bob Lynn's and Karen Wilson's so as you can image they bounced off the wall and looked fantastic together.
I also loved Jock Nichol's small landscape and Christy Keeney's interiors.
Well worth a visit and there is lots more paintings downstairs.
The show goes on until January 30th 2014.

Christy Keeney

Jock Nichol