Overpainted Underpaint
The way things go: A Homage // Butler Gallery // Kilkenny // 2017
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
Overpainted Underpaint
Oil on Canvas // 260 x 300 cm // 2017
I started playing with art when it was difficult to find contemporary art source material. I was maybe 30 circuits old when I first came across the work of the Wise Fish. I consider this fortunate, as exposure to their work as a young man would have had a debilitating effect on my output. My problem with their work is that it’s so good. I am a bit 1 Dimensional in that the only art work I rate is one that I am jealous of not having made. If someone else has already made the work that sings with your soul, it becomes redundant to traipse down similar terrain. Cultivating your own ignorance leaves you with a big playing field to pitch a plough. It’s a similar situation to seeing your doppelganger on the street, try and get as much distance as possible between you and them.
I was most likely influenced by other artists who were influenced by the Wise Fisher Men, that magical sense of approximated simulations that dilapidates on the verge of reality.
Regarding ‘The Way Things Go’ I thought it best to avoid going head to head with the kinetic energy of the masterpiece (Art is short for ego). A jumping bean can, in a room, would not do. I believe in moving the goal post whenever presented with an obstacle. The Wise Fish I reckon would agree on the approach, but insist on polystyrene sweatshirts for sub goalposts.
A large monotone painting was produced over a period of 40 days and dazed out nights, it owes more to the spirit of their great series ‘Suddenly this Overview’ mixed with a little of my me-ness. It’s tentatively titled ‘Overpainted Underpaint’ for short, or the longer official administrative title, which is, the whole of this text that you are reading. At its core the work embraces the empirical physics that were deployed and celebrated by the Wise Fish. A place where the 2nd law of thermodynamics (Good 2 Bad 2 Worse) reigns supreme and kicks all theoretical contenders in their rusty buckets. As the work swaggers up the left wing of the playing field of paint, it does a quick one two with 2 Wise 2 Fish, who are data mining Schrödinger to achieve the metaphysical miracle of the impossible, the stumbling block of cheating nature and observing the unobserved. Saturn pokes his eye into the affair and heads the ball hurtling down into a holographic projectile of light shattering auto atom vision of CGI that radiates to unknown levels of no sense. The MassCats are laughing their arses off in another perceptual dimension as project blue beam goes full Hello Kitty. It hovers like a mini-verse death star over the only know porthole to the centre of the unknown world. The Pine cone weeps as its vision is drowned in Gulag Gulps of fluoride, for its pupil will calcify, petrify and turn to stoic stone. An upright multi strata petrified tree holds centre stage and defies the laws of descriptive fantasy known as gravity. It’s the last of the great trees, now rootless and wandering like mad Sweeney. It found support, solace and access to the eternal power of the ether from the Great Defender of Trees, providing musical scores for Columcille and his choral group The Petrified Avian Flues. Its laying on an own goal for Bishop Berkley to contemplate from the side-lines. Descartes is red carded and will need some medical attention after his lumbering tackle with a thought experiment. Exit on the magpies cackle as the Horror Vacui takes visual root.