Hughie O’Donoghue PERMANENT GREEN
Cover: Brotherhood of the Trees (detail)
Hughie O’Donoghue
22 APRIL - 30 MAY 2015
Hughie O’Donoghue PERMANENT GREEN
Marlborough Fine Art 6 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BY t: +44 (0) 20 7629 5161 e: mfa@marlboroughfineart.com www.marlboroughfineart.com
These paintings are unearthed rather than observed, a form of emotional archaeology, a peeling back of memory and experience to uncover something that has left an indelible mark upon me. Paradoxically they are realised in an accumulation of successive layers of oil paint as images are slowly built, corrected, reenforced and finally coagulate into something that feels like an equivalent of the truth. A visual poem dredged out of imagination and memory. � Hughie O’Donoghue
Permanent Green
It’s a house like any other house in that part of the world, and the trees and animals and roads that stand sentinel or anyway move around it are exactly like those I would see around my wife’s house, before her mother left it. Going back there, turning left and right through North Kerry hills, the building seems to hold within it the life she had known there. But it has taken on a different shape too, the way a place you leave does: the sadness of parting from something is met at some point by the way in which that place can become a sort of resource, something to think with.
Part of the furniture The door handles are stiff and squeak. We empty a wardrobe, remove a photo, files, a book she wanted, and look around. The décor is suddenly obvious, styles that came and went, colours going as late light pours through the landing window into what used to be your room. No guessing, until we saw it, that the child’s rocking chair lent, decades ago, by a neighbour, would take on this heavy, amber permanence, creaking, as soon as you touch it, to and from a future the day already darkens. We don’t get to see into the house at the centre of Hughie O’Donoghue’s new sequence of paintings, Permanent Green, but a light shines in its windows and from its open door which acts as a kind of centre for the colours and creatures and ways of living they suggest. O’Donoghue offers a different slant on the West of Ireland landscape which has been the testing ground for many artists. Manchester-born he visited Mayo and his mother’s family as a child and has, more recently, lived there for nearly a
decade. The paintings, like those from his Gort Rua series, are imprinted not just by the place he now lives in, but also by the vivid memory of a remembered place. That notable vividness is signalled by the sequence’s title, and by the boldness of O’Donoghue’s colours. There is something at stake in the way these paintings return to their scene, something difficult that the paintings do, powerfully, articulate. The paintings are all obscured by something that ‘gets in the way’, a bird or, as often, a cow or a tangle of branches, but these things that get in the way turn out to be doing valuable work in the paintings, generating a sense of space and perspective. The places where these animals, like the house’s inhabitants, live is now too a place where the viewer is invited to dwell. And the house, and the country around it, do of course have a large cultural heft, which is clear everywhere when you look at these paintings, just as it was in his Passion paintings, or the war of Painting Caserta Red or Seven Halts on the Somme. One image, Revolution Cottage, suggests that its image of a rural Irish dwelling is a figure or symbol for the other cottages whose inhabitants would leave them, some as emigrants and others as revolutionaries. O’Donoghue has visited Patrick Pearse’s cottage in Rosmuc, and
John McAuliffe
his painting conveys something of the way in which the cottage and life of western Ireland, as re-imagined by JM Synge and by the poet and painter Yeats brothers, were integral to the revolutionaries of Easter 1916. The title suddenly draws attention to the way in which this figurative painting is also an improvised restructuring of the green, white and orange of the Irish tricolour. The country life, and the cottage, continues, in O’Donoghue’s hands, to be a vehicle for rethinking the way we live now. These multiply extended, improvised structures bear some resemblance to his art’s own visible, dramatic processes. The dwellings in these paintings are not picturesquely small and smoothly squared away against mountain or sea; they are not out of the picture entirely as they are in many Irish landscape painters. Like the amazing structures of Seven Halts on the Somme, where outcrops of a mill or a raised road loomed across the places where eviscerating battles had been fought, the house’s survival at the end of a road or by a river or beside a line of poplars tells a story of a culture which these paintings make available to us, inviting the viewer to see them as place to feel and think about their world. The layered, glazed, reworked surfaces generate, typically, a sense that the paintings’ scenes are dramatic, moving around their central focus
even as we look at them. The sense of dialogue, of overheard conversation, of memory and perception engaged with one another, is unusually writerly, an effect that is evident in all of these pictures but is especially pronounced in the diptych Around the House where foregrounded black branches stream around the brightness of the old house. This is painting that shows, among other things, the signs of its careful construction. The American poet Susan Stewart writes, in her magisterial book Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, about how poems are usefully weighed down by allusion, a weight which we feel as a sort of ballast and seriousness, although Stewart is careful to add that poems which lean on this effect alone can somehow seem overdetermined. She goes on to say that for the artist, there must be something else complicating the structure and making us relish its originality as much as its security and authority, its sensuality as much as the seeming fatedness of its structure, and how those elements are entangled. Stewart observes in relation to this juxtaposition that ‘error is productive’, freeing up the new work to go places it might not otherwise discover. In Night Visitor, there is a white flash – an owl – whose perspective on the painting’s field, run and barn both blocks and deepens how we look
at them. It is an inspired perspective, although O’Donoghue confesses that the image came out of a misheard place-name, the night visitor derived from hearing ‘owl run’ standing in for what someone had meant as ‘the auld run’. O’Donoghue’s masterful painting knows, surely, the old run it is coming from, but what he is doing with the traditions he is heir to is freer, and – in this series – more welcoming and owl-eyed about its dark landscapes than a visitor to its places might expect.
John McAuliffe grew up in Listowel in Ireland and now lives in Manchester. His fourth book, The Way In, will be published by The Gallery Press this summer.
List of works
A Bend in the Road 2015 207 x 241 cm Oil on canvas
Revolution Cottage 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas
Stone Wall: Iron Roof 2015 41 x 57 cm Oil on canvas
Field Navigator 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas Private Collection UK
Night Visitor 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas
Wintering Out I 2015 30.5 x 38.5 cm Oil on canvas
Brotherhood of the Trees 2015 247 x 277 cm Oil on canvas
Wintering Out II 2015 30.5 x 38.5 cm Oil on canvas
Around the House 2015 136 x 202 cm Oil on canvas
Wintering Out III 2015 30.5 x 38.5 cm Oil on canvas
Winter Field I 2015 41 x 57 cm Oil on canvas
Winter Field II 2015 41 x 57 cm Oil on canvas
Winter Field: Ploughed Earth 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas Private Collection UK Animal Farm 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas Above the Field 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas Path of the River 2015 123 x 144 cm Oil on canvas
Stone Walls and an Iron Roof 2015 62 x 92 cm Oil on canvas
A Bend in the Road 207 x 241 cm
Field Navigator 123 x 144 cm Private Collection UK
Winter Field: Ploughed Earth 123 x 144 cm Private Collection UK
Animal Farm 123 x 144 cm
Above the Field 123 x 144 cm
Path of the River 123 x 144 cm
Revolution Cottage 123 x 144 cm
Night Visitor 123 x 144 cmÂ
Brotherhood of the Trees 247 x 277 cm
Around the House 136 x 202 cm
Winter Field I 41 x 57 cm
Stone Walls and an Iron Roof 62 x 92 cm
Stone Wall: Iron Roof 41 x 57 cm
Wintering Out I 30.5 x 38.5 cm
Wintering Out II 30.5 x 38.5 cm
Wintering Out III 30.5 x 38.5 cm
Winter Field II 41 x 57 cm
Biography SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS FROM 1997– 2015
Parables, Centre Cultural Irlandais, Paris, France
2014 The Measure of all Things, The Chapter House, Westminster Abbey, London
The Geometry of Paths, James Hyman Gallery
Seven Halts on the Somme, Verey Gallery, Eton College
2007 Last Poems, Galerie Michael Janssen, Berlin, Germany
2013 A Need for Gardens, The Hunt Museum, Limerick, Ireland
2006 Souvenir of St. Valery, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London
Gort Rua, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin
The Deep, Galway Arts Festival 2006, Fairgreen Gallery, Galway City and Aras Enna Arts Centre, Inis Oirr, Ireland.
A Need for Gardens, Marlborough Fine Art, London 2012 Painting/Memory, Artist’s Laboratory 05, Royal Academy, London Vivid Field, Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal A Moments Liberty, Marlborough Fine Art 2011 Road, Dox Museum, Prague, Czech Republic Absolut Festival Gallery, Galway, Ireland Excavations, Trinity Hall, Cambridge 2010 Last Days on the Islands, Oliver Sears Gallery 2009 The Journey, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds
2005 Parable of the Prodigal Son, Fenton Gallery, Cork, Ireland Venice Project: The Drunkenness of Noah, Purdy Hicks Gallery, 2004 Fiume, Purdy Hicks Gallery Crucifixions, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, off site project at Duiske Abbey Graiguenamanagh and Callan Friary, Callan. Ireland 2003 Painting Caserta Red, Imperial War Museum, London; Imperial War Museum North, Manchester,
Hughie O’Donoghue, Recent Paintings and Selected works from the American Ireland Fund Donation Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Postcard from Milan and other prints, Purdy Hicks Gallery
Spirit of the Figure, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury
Course of the Diver, Galerie Karl Pfefferle, Munich, Germany
Pharos, James Hyman Gallery, London 2008 Lost Histories; Imagined Realities, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Netherlands
2002 Course of the Diver, Purdy Hicks Gallery
2001-3 Richer Dust, Carborundum prints and related Paintings, touring exhibition opened at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge travelling to the Djanolgly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham,
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery 2001 Naming the Fields, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, Ireland Navigation, Mayo General Hospital, Castlebar, Ireland 2000 Ancient Music, Galerie Helmut Pabst, Frankfurt, Germany Smoke Signals, Purdy Hicks Gallery 1999 Niobe’s Children, Galerie Karl Pfefferle, Episodes from the Passion, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin, Ireland Corp, Paintings and Drawings of the Human Body 1984-1998 Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester 1998-9 Corp, Paintings and Drawings of the Human Body 1984- 1998 Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin Crossing the Rapido: An Italian Campaign 9 October 1943-29 April 1998 Purdy Hicks Gallery 1997 Via Crucis, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany A Line of Retreat, Paintings & Carborundum Prints, Purdy Hicks Gallery
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2014 The Power of the Sea, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol 2012 The Mechanical Hand, Kings Place Gallery, London
Borrowed Memories, Luan Gallery, Athlone 2011 Afterlife Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 2010 Retrospective, Visual, Carlow, Ireland 2008 Night, A Time Between, Royal West of England Academy 2007-8 I’m Always Touched by your Presence, Dear – New Acquisitions, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland 2007 Then and Now James Hyman Gallery, London 2006 Drawing Inspiration, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal Bodies of Water, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath; Southampton City Art Gallery 2005 Ljubljana International Graphic Biennale representing Great Britain. Ljubljana, Slovenia Eye of the Storm, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2004 Views from an Island, Contemporary Irish Art from the Collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Millennium Museum, Bejing; Shanghai Art Gallery, China 2003 Past Memory/Present Feeling, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA, USA Contemporary Prints, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford The Journey, Whitworth Art Gallery,
University of Manchester 2000 Geschichte und Erinnerung Kunst der Gegenwart (History and Memory in Contemporary Art, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany Five Centuries of Genius, European Master Printmaking, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia An Artist’s Century, Masterworks and Self Portraits of 20th Century Irish Artists, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin The Times of Our Lives: Endings, Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester 1999 Graphic! British Prints Now, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA Last Dreams of the Millennium: The Re-emergence of British Romantic Painting University Art Gallery, California State University, Stanislaus; Main Art Gallery, California State University, Fullerton; University of Hawaii USA 1997-8 W hen Time Began to Rant and Rave: Figurative Painting from 20th Century Ireland Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK : University of California Art Museum, Berkeley; Grey Art Gallery & Study Centre, New York; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbour, USA Andata e Ritorno: British Artists in Italy 1980-96, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, UK
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Arts Council of Great Britain Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery British Museum Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Cleveland County Museums, Middlesbrough Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland Djanogly Art Gallery, University of Nottingham Dublin City Gallery, Hugh Lane, Dublin Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, Netherlands Huddersfield Art Gallery Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland Hunt Museum, Limerick Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow The Imperial War Museum, London The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland Mayo General Hospital, Ireland, Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbour, USA National University of Ireland, Cork, National University of Ireland, Galway National University of Ireland, Maynooth The National Gallery, London St John’s College, University of Oxford Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Trinity Hall, Cambridge Ulster Museum, Belfast Victoria Art Gallery, Bath Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Yale Center for British Art, New Haven USA
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Design: Shine Design, London Print: Impress Print Services Ltd. Photography of works: Todd White Photography of studio: Colin Crisford ISBN: 978-1-909707-18-4 Catalogue no. 645 Š 2015 Marlborough