The Diary

This painting is part of my solo show Rococo and is large 152x122cm oil painting.

This painting defies any specific story, apart from its title the Diary, and I am not a diary person, so there is no personal story behind this composition.  This painting just evolved as part of the process of working on this collection of paintings, Rococo, now showing as my new solo exhibition at the Doorway Gallery, Dublin (www.thedoorwaygallery.com).   This painting is made up of the elements that I have previously researched on for other paintings in this collection and past work.  Therefore, the initial inspiration behind this painting would have been a generic theme of a reclining female form.

However, I do have more thoughts on this composition, as ever since my daughter ( who was doing her English literature degree course at the time) challenged me by pointedly enlightening me on the dangers of  ‘scopophilia’ and subject matter, and which I had always known as ‘key-hole’ paintings, which describes the phrase so much better in painting terms.  Basically in the visual sense of the word it is the rather ‘creepy’ past time of a peeping tom, voyeuristically spying on an unaware person at their business (usually a woman).  Degas’ beautiful pastels of women at their toilette is one example in the painting world, that immediately comes to mind. And even though I love these works beyond words, the thought that the source behind them, would have any bearing on what I was setting out to achieve,  horrified and appalled me, no, no, no not at all what I am about. 

But it got me thinking, as to why my paintings where not like this.  And I think it’s because, my female forms are just that; they are not portraits in the descriptive sense of the word, they are more like symbols of women, and they could be you or anyone, with a bit of an imaginative leap.  They are also always engaged in existential activities like reading, thinking, writing and dreaming, and are just one of the component parts in my painted world, equal with that of say a vase of flowers or teapot. The way I use paint and my strong colour, is again not so much descriptive as tactile and sensory and therefore not illustrative or descriptive in a narrative sense.

working drawing for final painting The Diary

Therefore I see my paintings as ‘tactile’ paintings.  As Rothko writes in his ‘Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art”

‘that the goal of art is to express reality through plastic means not through description” He means by the word plastic the physical properties of the paint medium itself.

The Diary is therefore a painting about balance and fulfillment, self-contentment, and harmony, where in that one moment in time everything is right and pure. It describes a state, rather than a place.  The painted cat and bird are engaged in the painted world creating a dialogue within the space, which helps to introduce the elements of companionship, interaction and movement.  The cat also introduces the sense of touch that helps to enhance the tactile nature of my painting language. 

The landscape outside, set centrally, gives the composition a strong shape and form in which to balance the objects within my 2 dimensional space, and also describes the outside world that links and yet contrasts with the interior, thus creating a ‘threshold painting’. This helps me recreate a sense of expansiveness to counteract any sense of claustrophobia that an enclosed room painted or otherwise might suggest.

The shoes and diary symbolize action within the painting, either happening or just happened, which helps create a sense of movement, without having to paint descriptive movement.  I feel that descriptive or illusory painting is a very different type of painting, and one which I have almost entirely dis-engaged myself from.

Dod Procter Inspiration

Dod Procter Sleeping Girl National Gallery of Ireland

 

 

  Dod Procter (1892-1972) was a Newlyn painter living and working in Cornwall, and her Sleeping Girl, is in the collection at the National Gallery of Ireland.  It has been a love affair with me, ever since I first set eyes on this painting, and every so often I go and pay my respects to this understated masterpiece . To me, it is such a magnificant painting, with it’s strength of composition, dexterity and skill:  juxtaposed with the serenity of the sleeping girl and the quietness of the tonal painting-it is just breath-taking!

girl with kitten 71x71cm oil on canvas

garden shade 71x71cm oil on canvas

This painting has been very inspirational for me, and I have assimilated and incorporated it into a number of my compositions and drawings as can be seen here.

February Spotlight-Rococo Show

magenta rhododendrum 92x76cm oil on canvas





It’s interesting to look back and identify the original source to an idea or inspiration.  But reflecting on my choice for the ‘Rococo’ theme in this year’s solo show; I can source this idea back to more than 30 years ago, when I was just starting my degree course in painting back in 1979.  It was in my second year at Sheffield, first year in the painting department.   Along the department’s corridor was hanging past pupils work.  One particular painting intrigued me; it was a large full length canvas of a woman in a long intricate patterned dress, in dry brushwork in pastel colours very like a Klimt on reflection.  It was the beautiful quality of the almost pointillist dry brush marks that reminded me of the same tactile qualities of pastel crayon on paper.  The canvas was left bare which was buff coloured linen.  I was at this time using a lot of pastel crayon myself with my studio work and life drawing, so this painting encouraged me try and paint like I was drawing.  If only I had the knowledge then that I have now, to realise that drawing and painting are completely different processes, and one doesnt necessarily lead to the other. Small steps!! 

                                                                                                                                                             self portrait 30x20cm pastels 1979



So 30 years on, I now find I have this opportunity to explore these pastel colours again with ‘rococo’. 

  I am obviously always drawn to strong, impactful colours, so any subdued or subtle colours will always be countered in my work by its strong opposing counterpart, to be eventually  dominated by my direct compositional devices and upfront perspectives, so maybe the paintings in Rococo is the nearest I’ll get to a delicate palette.  But it’s these little twists and turns that I explore within my personal painting style, that keep the process fresh and continually exciting for me, and give each new exhibition a slightly different feel-factor.

Buddleia Globosa

buddleia globosa 92x76cm oil on canvas

Buddleia Globosa oil on canvas  92x76cm now showing in my new solo exhibition Rococo at The Doorway Gallery, Dublin from 3rd February to the 1st March.

It was many years ago, while I was walking in Avondale gardens (Wicklow), which is Charles Steward Parnell’s old demesne, now owned and managed by Coilte that I came across this rather unusual flowering shrub, Buddleia Globosa.  You could say that this 500 acre estate is a testament to one man’s vision, as around 150 years ago Parnell completely changed this part of Wicklow’s landscape by planting and creating a haven of intricate woodland walks mainly pine trees of every shape and form; from huge multi-trunked Cyprus trees, to towering redwoods.  Even the common leylandii is given a place of its own here, in which it can be seen in all its surprising beauty.

Adjacent and opposite to the house itself there is a park- like swathe of grass,  where shrubs and rhododendrons have been planted at the edges of towering stands of eucalyptus trees.  Nearer the approach of the house, the shrubs become more low- forming and delicate, and it was here that the rather medieval- looking buddleia globosa grew.  Why I say medieval, is that is has that old antique look about it, the colours are all based around yellow ochre like a complex gilded and embroidered Tudor tunic.  The leaves are almost brassica like with lots of lichen olive green undulations, and mysterious soft pale undersides. The flowers are round and form in pairs or in threes, like berries.   Globes of ochre green that slowly change to a warm delicious yellow orange, little residual leaves near the flowering brackets curl back on themselves and look so intricate and decorative against the cerulean blue of a clear sunny June day.

Like all Buddleias they seem to strike well from cuttings and somehow one little broken branch found itself transported back to my home and within a year was planted out and growing fast. Looking out now from my kitchen window I am looking at one of these selfsame shrubs, nothing much to look at now, I must confess, and it has to be dramatically cut back every 2^nd year or otherwise it becomes ungainly with unsightly woody bare branches. However, come April- May, I will be thinking to myself, maybe it’s time for another Buddleia Globosa painting.  And I always seem to paint them with a strong Indian Yellow background that threatens to swamp and dominate any subtle painting that I might have achieved in the flower- clusters of the tiny sunny florets that make up the characteristic round head.  But I can’t help myself, I think they are just the embodiment of happiness; to me they represent the sun, and I use them to celebrate the colour yellow, particularly that Indian yellow that has more than a hint of red about it.

Buddleia Globosa  oil on board 2006

Lucy Doyle preview to Rococo exhibition

Rococo Sisters

Rococo Sisters  oil on canvas 152x152cm, is  the largest painting in my new solo exhibition “Rococo”.  The show is about to open on the 3^rd February and runs throughout February into March at The Doorway Gallery, 24 South Frederick Street Dublin 2.

Image source: Traditional Indian Textiles by John Gillow and Nicholas Barnard

The idea for this painting came about many years ago when I first came across this photograph, of 3 women sat together, in my Traditional  Indian Textile book, that I often refer to  for inspiration.  I always  thought of these Bengali women as sisters, they are so enigmatic and beautiful, with all of their finery merging together as a single unit.  For many years I have tried to paint a composition with 3 seated figures connected, yet in context with their surroundings, and Rococo gave me such an opportunity.  When I was collecting research material for Rococo,  I came across this film still of the Marie Antionette cast on set, and immediately my Indian ladies were recalled to mind.

I have included some working drawings from my sketch book, that show how I worked out this composition, the actual specific details and actual colour combinations  would have been worked out on the finished painting, a  scary thought I know!   A bit like diving head first into  cold water, except in this case, its preferable to keep the eyes open!!



Dream or Sleep that is the question!

Here are some pages taken from my working sketch book, just to give you an idea of how I go about conceiving the idea of a painting and how that manifests itself into the finished article.

I adore Picasso’s’ The Dream’, his patterning in this painting, is so jazzy and energetic, in opposition to the passivity of the sleeping figure. This suggests to me that all that latent energy behind that sleeping face, has found expression in the decorative elements of the composition. A clever visual device to illustrate something so complex as a dream.

From my sketches  you can see that I was trying to compose my own’ Dream’ composition, with a format  similar to Picasso’s.  But I couldn’t quite work out how I was going to make the background dominate  the figure in the chair, that would suggest  a more Dream-like element. So it kept feeling like a ‘Sleep’ theme which to me is very different and not what I was setting out to achieve.    Then I was talking to a friend who was telling me about her planned day’s vacation after months of exhausting work, that had left her very frayed at the edges.  She was planning to book into a hotel for a day (on her own of course) and  spend the day in bed with all her favorite books around her; tea and meals to be eaten in bed and no one to disturb her; just the pure luxury of’ time out’ for one day. Once this vision got into my head it took over my original idea for formatting my composition, and instead, it evolved into a bird’s eye view of a figure on a bed with her chosen objects around her.   I drew and painted a  full size sketch for the finished painting which I forgot to photograph and has since been over-painted with a new idea for a new painting, but this would have looked very much like the painting itself.

I hope this to goes someway to help understand how I go about energizing and motivating myself into the painting process.   I think it goes to show that this process is sometimes only just that; just a means to an end; rather than an essential part of the finished product.

Now my only problem left, is what to call this finished painting, as I want to call it 'Dream' but somehow it's still suggesting 'Sleep' to me!! 

122x122cm oil on canvas