Ben Groves Fmp Dissertation

My dissertation is composed of three sections in which I focus on a particular artist and relate their work to my final major project. I have found that Hughie O’Donogue throughout my whole course looking at other artists has been an intrinsic part in my beginning to understand the Antony Hegarty relationship between artist and art. How an individual’s background and views become a foundation for building a signature and distinctive style, seems to be a vital part of Anselm Kiefer moving from making art and being an artist. *Front cover image, Light on Millisle Beach, Waterless Lithograph, Ben Grove

“Initial ideas are almost always no use; that’s how paintings grow. In Cezanne hesitancies led to triumph- the brushwork flickers about the form of the mountain.” (O’Donoghue 2000) I use this quote to introduce the artist Hughie O’Donoghue as I feel it sums up an attitude to painting that has become clearer to me during my final painting, namely, that it is very seldom that I can decide to paint something and then do it. It is in this context that initial ideas almost become redundant. It is the tiny almost indefinable ideas that happen in a fleeting moment that all add up to painting, and that as O’Donoghue put it, is “how they grow”. I first became aware of the artist Hughie O’Donoghue during a first semester tutorial, Carina had mentioned his use of encaustics, which at the time was a medium that I was getting interested in. It was towards the end of my pathway stage that I started to think how his work could tie in to my final major project. When reading about how O’Donoghue works Hughie O’Donoghue, Baia II 2003. 211x191cm and how he confronts his painting I have begun to understand some of the difficulties that I have across.to read in one of his emails to James Hamilton, the author of “Painting, It wascome interesting Memory and Myth”, that O’Donoghue was concerned about the interpretation of his works that contained images of his father Daniel. Although these works could easily be thought of as being about his father they are in fact not intended as such. This got me thinking about my own work…

…what I am attempting to do is to tackle the subject of gender

but using the landscape to portray a third place something not otherworldly but imagined. The textures and colours I will use, will hopefully remind the viewer of a familiar place. I think what O’Donoghue is doing in using the images of his father is creating an image, that people will find within, something familiar and recognisable despite it’s obscurity. He refers to the archive of photograph’s and letters belonging to his father which became his after his fathers death as “relating to an individual life during extraordinary times” but then went on to say “I think it is likely that if I had stumbled upon an archive like this in a junk shop I would probably have used it in my Hughie O’Donoghue, No.13 Berlin Red Letter Days 113x113cm work”

I think this is most interesting because what the general public perceive in O’Donoghue’s work in this series is far removed from the artists own intentions. That in itself could become a catalyst on which to base my own difficulties surrounding my subject matter. To, in some way defer or project my intentions through imagery not explicitly connected to the subject matter. O’Donoghue’s describes the link between meaning and imagery in his painting; “the search for meaning in the action and life of an individual is to a large extent what the pictures themselves mean”. Hughie O’Donoghue, No.50 Cologne Red Letter Days. 113x113cm

As part of my research into Hughie O’Donoghue’s work I made a trip to the IMMA Dublin for a major exhibition of his work. Seeing his work in the flesh had a huge impact on me, his work is on a huge scale but necessarily so, to put his images and found objects into their rightful context. The visit to his exhibition enabled me to appreciate the surface qualities and the contrasting gloss and matt finishes that he puts to amazing use drawing the viewer into the painting.

Millisle Beach No.2 Ben Groves. Encaustic with photographic elements

Hughie O’Donoghue,Baiae II 46 x 58cm

O’Donoghue appears to use encaustic in his work which I have tried to confirm in my research but most pieces are usually identified as “Oil On Canvas”. I’m sure from looking at his paintings that encaustic is employed at certain stages which are then dry brushed, thus building up the pages of the painting.

O’Donoghue says at the end of his correspondence “perhaps the works point or shine a light in the direction of the obscured (rather than anonymous) individual.” Perhaps what I need to do is figure out what direction I want to take my subject matter and remind myself that I am in control of what I produce. I was asked not long ago why I wanted to paint and at the time I gave an awkward answer mentioning the love of the process.

Hughie O’Donoghue,(in his studio) featuing,Parable Of The Prodigal Son.

Having more time to dwell on that question I think the reason I want to paint is because it gives me confidence. Before I started this course I lacked any shred of confidence and suffered because of that, but somehow, by painting I have acquired some confidence in myself. The Canadian abstract expressionist painter Jean-Paul Riopelle stated, “When I hesitate, I do not paint. When I paint, I do not hesitate.” I think that extends to self confidence, when I’m not feeling self confident I don’t paint but when I paint I am confident, which is good, especially for me.

I think a lot of good painters must be extremely confident about what they want to do, not in an arrogant sense, but in the sense that painting is absolutely what they must do even if it is hard going at times. The feeling that wanting to paint is a force from inside was analogized brilliantly by the artist Paul Klee when he said, “and yet, standing at his appointed place, the trunk of a tree, [the artist] does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. He neither serves nor ruleshe transmits.” (Herbet 1999)

The changing face of moo cow farm No.7 37x57cm

In this sense painting becomes much more than illustration it is a transformation or a transmission of the source, the painter. Just as the sap of a tree travels up it’s trunk up into the many branches those ideas divide and sub divide almost infinitely and produce foliage or fruit the outward sign of all of that effort. Millisle Beach No..4, Ben Groves. I wanted experiment with O’Donoghue’s colours and subtlety in his compositions.

During my final major project I became aware of an artist called Antony Hegarty, a singer songwriter, who recently has exhibited some of his own artwork at the ISIS gallery in London. I sat captivated as I watched the tail end of BBC’s culture show performing one of his songs, “Her eyes are underneath the ground”. The moment I saw him I was mesmerized something about the way he sang made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

Antony Hegarty; Image courtesy of www.onlyangels.free.fr

That night I searched for concert dates and booked tickets at his June 1st performance at the Waterfront Hall. Anthony Hegarty sings about his experiences as someone whose gender resides in a third place with songs such as “Another World” and “For Today I Am A Boy”. In my statement of intent for my final major project I refer to a “third place” this has been hard for me to translate into painting and I know it will be a long process for me in figuring it out, but if I can express myself in some way that relates to my experiences dealing with challenging gender issues, then I feel I will be making art that, going back to the tree analogy, comes from my roots. Antony Hegarty is an artist who I feel accomplishes that expression of inner feeling to an incredible level of sensitivity and for that reason has become a fountain of inspiration for me and my art.

Antony Hegarty grew up knowing he was an outsider, but it seems he realized at a young age the need to stay loyal to one’s own truth and not appear to be one thing to the world outside and remain another person inside. Reading about his relationship with his artwork reveals his deep sense of connection with his spiritual side: "I have drawn and made things since I was a kid. The visual world is a place I can dream in solitude. I think about the present and how can I reach out to gather the past and the future and draw them towards me. I try to follow the lines, tracing the invisible. Sometimes it's a simple matter of bringing something Drive Me Home (2007) C Print 30" x  into focus, or drawing 28" forward the spirit I (primary materials - newsprint, tape) imagine lies hidden ©Antony Hegarty inside a thing. “ This kind of spiritual attunement that Antony Hegarty has, comes through both in his lyrics and his visual artwork. The personal statement supporting his exhibition at the ISIS stated, The Ocean and The Land (2008) ”Hegarty depicts landscapes haunted by the past and the future, seeking to identify a sense of crisis, morality and truth C Print 33" x 40" (primary materials - paper, print, acrylic, upon which a path forward can be forged.” I feel the stage I find myself in now with respect to my art is one that requires wax, thread, pencil) © Antony Hegarty me to similarly identify my own truth and construct a path that both emboldens me and inspires me to continue expressing myself in my paintings.

My final artist is Anselm Kiefer, I first looked at his work as part of my photography research as Mark had mentioned his work for contextualising within our photogram workshops. It was Mark who again sparked the re-interest in Kiefer’s work as during one tutorial he had shown me a thin exhibition program he had for one of Kiefer’s exhibitions. What I had not appreciated up till that point was the scale of Kiefer’s work but their scale isn’t there just to impose and engulf the viewer, it almost seems as if Kiefer is depicting say a ploughed field then we the viewer must feel as though we are actually in that ploughed field. The scale is almost driven by the type or form of his materials so as to place them in context, so a clump of straw is just as it would be if we were standing next to it in it’s original environment.

Anselm Kiefer, Nuremburg, 1982. Acrylic ,emulsion and straw on canvas,2.8m x 3.8m

Kiefer layers the surface with dirt, straw, lead, tree branches and twigs, seeds and dried flowers, to name just a few. He is also known for using photography and text within his imagery almost like codes that emit signals from history and memory.The Independent said in a review of Kiefer’s February 2007 exhibition at London’s White Cubes Gallery: “Great art is about transformation. And transforming experience and transforming materials are what Anselm Kiefer specializes in. The The Book by Anselm Kiefer, 1979-85 1.9m x 3.3m contrasting themes of destruction and Oil, emulsion, acrylic, pencil, plaster and lead book recreation, violent upheaval and spiritual renewal, underpin much of the artist's I feel my piece for my final major project echoes some work.” of the sentiment that is found within Kiefer’s work especially that of transformation. I think of myself as an inventor first and painter second I love to find a new purpose in both objects and materials and I feel I have done this in my final piece, a triptych which I made firstly with bleached cotton material and timber then with expanding polystyrene, sheetrock, tissue paper, beeswax, damar resin, household paint, watercolour, acrylic paint, oil paint, tree bark, silicone, rabbit skin glue, raw pigment, enamel, bitumen, and turpentine. The objects I used both came from a burnt out car from the beach car park, a section of tyre which appropriately had a rather female quality and a Anselm Kiefer,The Red Sea, 1984 radiator fan which in itself only appropriated the Oil emulsion and shellac on Photograph and woodcut on meaning I was looking for so I did alter that slightly Canvas with strips of lead. 2.74m x 4.18m with the use of some pliers a jigsaw a blow torch and a

This is a recent photograph taken of my final piece, I have not done anything to it since Carina saw it on the 9th May. I am pleased with the overall composition and after applying some of the comments from Mark and Elaine I feel it runs well as you read it from left to right with the different Areas of texture and colour blending well together. My final piece is 1.87m x 4.56m this represents both the ratio of dimensions that I feel reminds me of a landscape or panorama and logistically the largest sized triptych I could produce based on the materials I could source, especially the canvas, and the size of my doorway into my studio.

Hand detail I have included some close up photographs of my work so as to highlight some of the areas within the piece. I was glad of the chat I had with Carol about my idea of introducing the figure, which at the time was in the form of a mannequin. I was especially moved by Carol’s comments about the role of the hands and how they can be used to convey emotion. Upon reflection I decided to leave the mannequin idea on the shelf, maybe for another project or piece, instead I have brought in the figure as a symbol of transformation along with some sweeping brush strokes to signify the “bird gehrl” from one of Antony Hegarty’s songs.

Found objects detail

Distant figure detail

Conclusion,

Finding a way to visually express thoughts and feelings is a process that brings great happiness but is bittersweet at the same time. The happiness comes from the goose bumps when something clicks inside and confirms that this is what I want to do with my life, it gives me meaning. The anguish is knowing that what you want to express is deeply personal, something kept hidden for so long. Having been at the edge of living or dying has been painful for those around me to see but I found the strength to see past my millstone and came out on the good side. Small steps in the right direction have led me to this point where I find myself enjoying the direction my life is heading. Having the self-belief and motivation that this course has given me has produced a new spirit in me and a more confident positive person. I now want to get busy being a human being.

IMMA trip photo, blurred lines became a theme in the early development of my FMP, I also saw a link to the colours coming through using the bitumen In my painting.