GORRY GALLERY
W orld Tour Part 2 e xhi b i t i o n
GORRY GALLERY in conjunction with
Requests the pleasure of your company at the Private View of an Exhibition of Paintings
World Tou r Pa rt 2 on Sunday 1st November 2015 Wine Reception at 3.00pm This Exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment. Also on the Friday 30th and Saturday 31st October from 11.30am to 5.30pm. Exhibition continues until 14 November 2015.
Gorry Gallery 20 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2 Tel/Fax: +353 (0) 1 679 5319 www.gorrygallery.ie
Michael Flanagan T: 028 4481 2921 M: 07741 261107 E: info@mfart.co
Introduction to Part One of the Tour Neil Shawcross RHA. RUA Neil Shawcross is and has been an avid collector of all sorts of design and advertising material for the past twenty to thirty years, including packaging, tins, wine bottles, Americana, kitchenalia, museum and exhibition posters, etc. He has often painted series of works depicting some of his interests, i.e. Penguin Book Covers or Wine and other Bottles. Some twenty years ago he decided, as a bit of fun, to over-paint some of his posters rather than paint images of them. Encouraged by many friends he has continued to produce these unique over painted works (approx 100) and it is with great pride that I present part one of Shawcross’s World Tour. This is the first time that the series has been made available to the public. Posters included images by Hockney, Picasso, Rembrandt and many others - all superimposed by Neil’s art work with written details of an exhibition or museum’s promotional material left visible to the viewer. These are full blown paintings in (mostly) acrylic with a deliberate bold Shawcross signature to each one which makes them unique to this series. There are a few exceptional Linotypes included.
Very much considered an Irish artist, Neil was born in Lancashire in 1940. He studied art at Bolton College of Art from 1955 to 1958 and Lancaster College of Art from 1958 to 1960 before moving to Belfast in 1962 to take up a post to Lecture at Belfast College of Art where he continued to teach until his retirement in 2004. At 75 he still creates works in his studio on a daily basis. His work can be found in all major public and private collections in Ireland and in numerous other collections around the world. Michael Flanagan June 2015
A High Profile, Low Budget World Tour Whether it is the urge to paint a moustache on the face of the Mona Lisa or to overwrite an image or text on a wall with a social or political comment, it would seem that the desire to transform runs deep within the human psyche. In 1919 Marcel Duchamp did just that to Leonardo’s beauty and added LHOOQ (a pun in French on her sexual desire) to a postcard version. And of course Ciaran Carson has reminded us of the obsessive nature of wall writing ‘At times it seems that every inch of Belfast has been written on, erased and written on again…’. Appropriation and transformation has a long, purposeful and indeed fertile history in the visual arts. There is the deployment of newspaper cuttings in the early work of Picasso and the development of collage. In more recent times Andy Warhol and others appropriated imagery from the world of commerce and consumerism. Warhol’s ‘One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate)’ sold at Sotheby’s this year for £20 million. Actual dollar bills are over painted and transformed by Pakistani artist Murad Khan Mumtaz. To appropriate or adopt and indeed transform something that is readily available has then an established tradition which may be iconoclastic and challenging as well humorous and parodic. Neil Shawcross, in this collection of works, appropriates and transforms museum/art gallery posters but is a benign rather than a sinister iconoclast. He acquires posters (often from friends) which are multiple reproductions advertising/promoting an exhibition and
over-paints them to become an original work of art by him, while retaining the name of the host gallery of the original exhibition. The dates of his paintings do not always coincide with the dates on the posters. Consequently the art gallery poster which is a product of the world of merchandising is transformed into a unique art enterprise. This compelling aspect of his art practice started over twenty years ago with his over-painting of a poster of a Howard Hodgkin exhibition in Edinburgh and is still in periodic development (some 100 to date). As such this selection of paintings forms a mini retrospective of his stylistic development as an artist - the shift to a looser use of paint and thinner washes; the effective registration of ‘off key’ line against colour; from a delight in the decorative and figurative to the subtle powers of the semiabstract and the cross fertilization of pictorial and painterly concerns. Indeed when exhibited ensemble these image and text works become much more than the sum of their individual parts - their visual impact is turbo-charged. The artist’s main subjects are covered with the exception of his portrait series where increased scale is important to retain - some nude paintings, the Jazz works but mostly still lives. There is the hedonistic and playful ‘Dancing Nude’ (Cat No. 27). His interest in multiple image presentation may be detected in ‘6 Goblets’ (Cat No. 22) while the European tradition which offered such rich early artistic nourishment to him may be enjoyed in ‘Fruit and Flowers’ (Cat No. 46) and ‘Vase’ (Cat No. 7).
He has always experimented with the fertile interactions of the layering of paint - ratio of translucency to opaqueness; the affective surfacing of under-painting, resisting occlusion. This is perhaps at its most subtle and occular in ‘Red Jazz’ (Cat No 44). Indeed in some works the original poster image is allowed to break through in places, activating/energising the over-painting and the texts naming the museums and galleries vary in scale producing different dynamic hybrids of text and image. Shawcross loves travelling particularly in North America and this world tour, both fictitious and authentic embraces local and global outreach, without leaving the studio. Perhaps a ‘certificate of authenticity’ should be offered to the sceptical buyer - but please no fake dollars accepted! Liam Kelly October 2015 ©
Liam Kelly is Emeritus Professor of Irish Visual Culture at the School of Art and Design, University of Ulster, Belfast, N.Ireland. His publications include ‘Thinking Long – Contemporary Art in the North of Ireland’; ‘The City as Art’ (ed.), ‘Art and The Disembodied Eye’ and ‘The School of Art and Design, Belfast 1960-2009’.From 1986 -1992 he was Director of the Orpheus Gallery, Belfast and from 1996 -1999 Director of the Orchard Gallery, Derry. Currently he is Chair of the International Association of Art Critic’s Commission on Censorship and Freedom of Expression.
G allery
2. Ref 26
Wine Bottle & Fruit
71 x 48cm
76 x 51cm
O ne
1. Ref 71
Jug & Basin VI
3. Ref 35
4. Ref 69
Pair of Cups and Saucers
Decanter II
69 x 87cm
76 x 50cm
5. Ref 74
6. Ref 29
Red Jug of Flowers
Yellow Ladder Back Chair
67 x 50cm
91 x 61cm
7. Ref 6
8. Ref 92
Vase of Flowers
Cup & Saucer V
95 x 64cm
91 x 60cm
9. Ref 88
10. Ref 89
Kitchen Armchair
Flask
105 x 76cm
102 x 61cm
11. Ref 61
12. Ref 64
Radio
Nina Tomatoes
74 x 77cm
76 x 51cm
13. Ref 59
14. Ref 27
Chablis & Fruit
Setting the Table
76 x 97cm
66 x 48cm
Illustrated front cover of catalogue & printed invitation
G a llery Tw o 15. Ref 106
16. Ref 102
Pink & Silver Jazz
Black Nude
71 x 64cm
63 x 85cm
17. Ref 4
18. Ref 7
Vase of Poppies II
Jug & Basin IV
99 x 61cm
81 x 94cm
19. Ref 101
20. Ref 85
Self Portrait
Yellow Ladder Back Chair II
76 x 51cm
91 x 61cm
21. Ref 57
22. Ref 60
4 Goblets
6 Goblets
98 x 68cm
104 x 76cm
23. Ref 84
24. Ref 87
Musical Chair X
Tall Red Kettle
94 x 61cm
92 x 67cm
25. Ref 70
26. Ref 91
Musical Chair VIII
Dick Tracy
76 x 50cm
91 x 61cm
G allery
28. Ref 86
Musical Chair XI
76 x 51cm
63 x 40cm
Three
27. Ref 58
Dancing Nude
29. Ref 66
30. Ref 62
Violin & Bow
Telephone
66 x 46cm
46 x 61cm
31. Ref 93
32. Ref 75
Reclining Nude
Bowl of Fruit III
76 x 86cm
42 x 30cm
33. Ref 82
34. Ref 95
Dining Chair
Jug & Basin X
59 x 42cm
58 x 70cm
35. Ref 97
36. Ref 96
Cabaret
Wine, Fruit & Goblet
66 x 69cm
60 x 80cm
37. Ref 68
38. Ref 43
Poppies in Vase III
Musical Chair VII
60 x 42cm
42 x 30cm
39. Ref 67
40. Ref 81
Acqua Panna
Jug & Basin IX
46 x 61cm
59 x 42cm
41. Ref 79
42. Ref 63
Silver Jazz II
Bowl of Fruit II
60 x 43cm
71 x 51cm
43. Ref 73
44. Ref 76
Jug & Basin VII
Red Jazz
66 x 48cm
51 x 42cm
45. Ref 104
46. Ref 28
The Trial
Fruit and Flowers
73 x 48cm
60 x 64cm
47. Ref 105
48. Ref 103
The Castle
George Orwell Nineteen Eighty Four
76 x 56cm
76 x 56cm
49. Ref 65
50. Ref 98
Teacup & Saucer IV
Crouching Nude II
68 x 48cm
64 x 69cm
51. Ref 72
52. Ref 83
Green Teaspoon II
Purple Jazz II
66 x 48cm
59 x 42cm
53. Ref 77
54. Ref 40
Jug & Basin VIII
Red House II
66 x 74cm
59 x 42cm
55. Ref 100
56. Ref 80
Black & Red Jazz
Red Kettle II
71 x 50cm
57 x 42cm
57. Ref 94
58. Ref 99
Six Kozo Chairs
Jug & Basin XI
66 x 61cm
59 x 42cm
59. Ref 38
60. Ref 78
Jug & Basin V
Musical Chair IX
61 x 46cm
76 x 51cm
61. Ref 90
Vase of Poppies IV 94 x 61cm