Painting Today
15 Jul - 28 Aug 2010
PAINTING TODAY
Fergus Martin, Mark Joyce, Damien Flood, John Cronin, Eleanor Moreton, Michael Conrads
15 Jul - 28 Aug 2010
Green On Red Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new painting by a selection of gallery and non-gallery artists. No unifying theme or aesthetic unites this group. They are as distinguishable by their diversity of approach to materials and to their working method as they are by their play with support, for example. The exhibition includes paintings on wall panel, on canvas, on aluminium and on the floor.
Victory over the Sun is the title of the opening “painting" in the show by Mark Joyce. This painting has all the visual and graphic power of the early 20th century agit-prop Russian art to which it’s title connects. It is the title of the absurdist opera for which Kasimir Malevich painted his pioneering Black Square ( 1913 ), claimed as one of Western Art’s first purely non-objective, completely abstract paintings. It is described by Malevich as the “ zero-point of art “. Joyce has painted a site-specific painting that adorns the gallery’s entrance and is as purely about the dynamic power of colour and composition and site as any early 20th century ( outdoor ) manifestation. In a sensational burst of drawing it wraps around corners, stops short of the floor and extends to the ceiling.
The Early Modernism theme is picked up in the work of Michael Conrads in his two oil paintings on canvas. These works hark back to the geometric abstraction we associate with turn-of-the-century Paris and, to a lesser extent, to the artist’s native Germany. Small lozenges of dull colour jostle and abut in his crowded canvases that are given an extra edge by their unexpected untidiness, drips and worn surfaces. His Painting the Town Brown sits next to Fergus Martin’s brown painting called Today. Martin is represented by this exquisite, all but monochrome painting and a floor work, called Violet. Martin’s works are nothing if not intensely concentrated and arresting. Our eyes dare to soak up their intense clarity.
Eleanor Moreton, like Conrads, exhibits in Ireland for the first time. Her paintings exude charm and wit as they look back, it seems, to a bygone era of regal authority and opulence trapped in a Victorian mindset. Her handling of her medium might appear off-hand but is every bit in control. Damien Flood’s small paintings show a willingness to play and experiment with the surface and with the imagery. Narratives appear incomplete and open-ended and always puzzling.
In John Cronin’s two large oil on aluminium paintings called Augmented Reality we see the artist at his best. Few Irish artists can achieve the sumptuousness and visual exuberance in pushing the boundaries of technique and possibilities with colour as Cronin shows himself capable of doing here.
The next exhibition at the Green On Red Gallery is European Dream by Nigel Rolfe, beginning September 2nd. For further information please do not hesitate to contact Jerome or Mary at info@greenonredgallery.com or tel. 01.6713414.
Fergus Martin, Mark Joyce, Damien Flood, John Cronin, Eleanor Moreton, Michael Conrads
15 Jul - 28 Aug 2010
Green On Red Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new painting by a selection of gallery and non-gallery artists. No unifying theme or aesthetic unites this group. They are as distinguishable by their diversity of approach to materials and to their working method as they are by their play with support, for example. The exhibition includes paintings on wall panel, on canvas, on aluminium and on the floor.
Victory over the Sun is the title of the opening “painting" in the show by Mark Joyce. This painting has all the visual and graphic power of the early 20th century agit-prop Russian art to which it’s title connects. It is the title of the absurdist opera for which Kasimir Malevich painted his pioneering Black Square ( 1913 ), claimed as one of Western Art’s first purely non-objective, completely abstract paintings. It is described by Malevich as the “ zero-point of art “. Joyce has painted a site-specific painting that adorns the gallery’s entrance and is as purely about the dynamic power of colour and composition and site as any early 20th century ( outdoor ) manifestation. In a sensational burst of drawing it wraps around corners, stops short of the floor and extends to the ceiling.
The Early Modernism theme is picked up in the work of Michael Conrads in his two oil paintings on canvas. These works hark back to the geometric abstraction we associate with turn-of-the-century Paris and, to a lesser extent, to the artist’s native Germany. Small lozenges of dull colour jostle and abut in his crowded canvases that are given an extra edge by their unexpected untidiness, drips and worn surfaces. His Painting the Town Brown sits next to Fergus Martin’s brown painting called Today. Martin is represented by this exquisite, all but monochrome painting and a floor work, called Violet. Martin’s works are nothing if not intensely concentrated and arresting. Our eyes dare to soak up their intense clarity.
Eleanor Moreton, like Conrads, exhibits in Ireland for the first time. Her paintings exude charm and wit as they look back, it seems, to a bygone era of regal authority and opulence trapped in a Victorian mindset. Her handling of her medium might appear off-hand but is every bit in control. Damien Flood’s small paintings show a willingness to play and experiment with the surface and with the imagery. Narratives appear incomplete and open-ended and always puzzling.
In John Cronin’s two large oil on aluminium paintings called Augmented Reality we see the artist at his best. Few Irish artists can achieve the sumptuousness and visual exuberance in pushing the boundaries of technique and possibilities with colour as Cronin shows himself capable of doing here.
The next exhibition at the Green On Red Gallery is European Dream by Nigel Rolfe, beginning September 2nd. For further information please do not hesitate to contact Jerome or Mary at info@greenonredgallery.com or tel. 01.6713414.