To view as a PDF click here ‘Awakenings Reloaded’ by Paul McCloskey
Awakenings Reloaded’ by Paul McCloskey. Below are five large scale paintings included in the final exhibition. Four of the five are triptychs, see fig.2, 3, 4 and 5. The triptych has been used throughout history for varying reasons, from narrative to convenience of transport, including contemporary use, such painters as Cimabue, Giotto to Rothko and bacon along with many more featured the triptych. But the triptych for me in this series is representative of the three parts that make up the whole, as described by Neal Donald Walsh in his book ‘Conversations with God, book one,’ ‘This Triune Reality is God’s signature. It is the divine pattern. The threein-one is everywhere found in the realms of the sublime. You cannot escape it in matters dealing with time and space, God and consciousness, or any of the subtle relationships’. He goes on to say, ‘Some of your religionists have described the Triune Truth as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Some of your psychiatrists use the terms super conscious, conscious and subconscious. Some of your spiritualists say mind, body and spirit. Some of your scientists see energy, matter, ether.’(1997, p.30-31). I see this Triune however one describes it, as suggesting all that is substance and spirit alike that makes up our entirety, including the divine. When I speak of ‘spirituality’ I’m not necessarily referring to organised religious assemblages, but more so I'm referring to the belief that the act of creating can allow us to tap into our higher selves, which has been referred to as God, Spirit, energy or soul, this can open us to being inspired and allows us to sense, see and feel without the influence of the ego. Therefore I believe that being open to divine influence is an essential part of the creative process for the artist, producing work that can engage the viewer in a spiritual experience. This has been acknowledged throughout the interviews for my essay and throughout history. ‘For a long time I was sceptical of the spiritual in art, and believed that it was used as a label for work (painting) that could not be easily explained. I now believe that the spiritual is that innate drive that an artist must have, that same drive where the work of the artist goes’ (Doran, 2010). ‘In the broadest sense of definition of the Spiritual, there is little doubt that it plays a significant part in the creation of work, and I believe I experience some vital force, either of Self or of Other at certain stages in the making of work’ (Gaynor, 2010)
The Landscape itself is important to me in this series and the visual influence is determined by the surrounding landscape of my environment, but its intention is primarily as a catalyst in expressing divinity and is therefore secondary to this expression, it’s my intention to evoke a sense of spirit, of enormity through the ethereal and tactile qualities of the paint and aiming to suggest the vastness of landscape, both earth and sky, matter and space as the catalyst in which to express this sense of spirit, as indeed was the work of the great British romantic painter Turner, where he used Fig 1. Landscape with Prussian. Oil on Canvas. 183cm X 91cm landscape as an arbitrator to the realisation of the divine. His subject matter could generally not be regarded as spiritual and especially religious, yet he sought to express the power of the divine, the ethereal spirit in landscape. His visionary analysis of landscape for which he became so well respected as one of the greatest romantic interpreters of nature, in particular his unrivalled ability of his painting of light. Turner was striving for expression of spirituality in his works, rather than responding just to what he saw. Mark Rothko’s later abstract works recurrently consist of floating rectangles of shimmering colour on large canvases that manage to simultaneously convey a deep sensuality and a profound spirituality. Showing that subject Fig 1a. Landscape with Prussian .Detail matter although relevant particularly at the early stages or beginning of the painting, quickly become secondary to the process. Sean Scully suggests this weighting in ‘Resistance and persistence selected writings’ when he says; ‘Art does not need to make sense or to function or to demonstrate any particular idea. It testifies to the beauty of imperfect human thought and action muddled up with feeling.’ (2006, p.6)
Beginning with my previous series of paintings ‘Awakening (the Alpha)’, a sweeping ‘curve’ leading to the vortex of the landscape has emerged, its physical influence partly relates to my surroundings of the Wicklow and Wexford landscape, of hills, deep valleys and sweeping lines where I live. I have maintained this motif in this series of paintings to varying degrees, as it adds considerably to the drama and movement in my paintings, giving an organic, almost panoramic sense of depth to the paintings. Also I feel an Fig 2. Landscape with Umber. Triptych. Oil on Canvas. 183cm X 91cm urge to strike this perfect balance, the ultimate play of light, texture, shape and size. This recurring element is not entirely new to painting as some painters have spent their lives exploring variations of singular shapes, such as Josef Albers who is most famous for his series ‘Homage to the square’ where he explored chromatic interactions with flat colored squares arranged concentrically, as well as Sean Scully, who has explored recurrently horizontal and vertical stripes in a most beautiful painterly fashion. . As John I. H. Bauer states in ‘The New American Painting’, ‘it is not always given to me to know what my pictures ‘look like.’ I know that I work in a tension provoked by the contradictions I find in painting. I stay on a picture
Fig 2a. Landscape with Umber. Detail
until a time is reached when these paradoxes vanish and conscious choice doesn’t exist. I think of painting more in terms of the drama of this process than I do of ‘natural’ forces. The ethics involved in ‘seeing’ as one is painting, the purity of the act, so to speak is more actual to me than pre-assumed images or ideas of picture structure’ (1957-58, p.20) The use of gold within this series of paintings stems from this concept of the halo and the flat gold leaf backgrounds of the early Greek iconography. Although these gold areas coexist with the painted areas of light perceived as being more natural to the painted landscape, its purpose however is principally to separate divine/spiritual light from earthly light, gold being precious and standing out as extraordinary, intending to Fig 3. Landscape with Yellow. Triptych. Oil on Canvas. 183cm X 91cm evoke a sense of the sacred. Gesa Thiessen writes in ‘Theology and Modern Irish Art’ (1999, p157) ‘In the history of art the sun or bright (yellow-golden) light signifies salvation, hope, life and, more specifically, the divinity of and redemption in Christ, often through the halo’. During the 19th century the significance of light in Turners later works in particular, was the emanation of God's spirit. Suggesting light as a means of representing divinity, this radiance seems almost Fig 3a. Landscape with yellow. Detail. indelibly written into people’s psyche as a means of suggesting divinity or spirit. I have also built up layers of paint under some of the gold areas to add texture and shimmer (see details) thus
adding further to the dimensional element of the paintings, as the idea of spirit is that it is all things and all directions simultaneously. I attempt to reflect this dichotomy by allowing the shapes and colours to interchange from solid (enhanced by impasto layers) to atmospheric on the canvas surface. The intention is to bring all things together, textural, atmospheric, dark, light and gold causing a tension and cohesion forming explosive qualities that transcend the two dimensional surface of the canvas. The emergence of the landscape bathed in light, giving glimpses to its vast splendour and adds a mystical element to the paintings. In places sky and earth are as one (Fig.1. 1a), evoking for me the sense of personal growth, the sense of awakening to the beauty, divinity and perfection, to the divine order within all things. This suggestion of heaven and earth in constant struggle, merging yet separable, solid yet amorphous all suggest the dichotomy of the spiritual, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, the struggle within between the conditioned self and the divine/spiritual self. In fig 2 and 3 in particular the paint is layered Fig 4a. Landscape with Violet. Detail with a pallet knife, but I have emphasised the vortex of the landscape encouraging the viewer to focus centrally, almost as a witness to the shifting landscape with the merging of sky and earth. The thick layers of paint set against the darker flatter background adds dimension. Fig 4. Landscape with Violet. Triptych. Oil on Canvas. 183cm X 91cm
Apart from the dramatic compositions, the textural, tactile paint flowing into smooth, changing colour and fleeting light contrasted and emerging from dark areas of space have also added to the movement and drama within these works. In fig 4, I have worked black from the outer edges of the canvas, gradually meeting Fig 5. Landscape with Green. Triptych. Oil on Canvas. 183cm X Prussian blue, with hints of violet and increasing the tonal and textural elements as the eye is drawn towards the central focus of the painting. These seemingly empty areas/spaces in all of the paintings, occupy considerably more space on the canvas than the intricate more intensely texture details, giving space for the viewer to absorb the vastness and allowing those more obvious detailed areas to stand out as special or precious (fig 1a.2a.3a.4a.5a.) This equilibrium between dark and light, subtle and obvious, textured and smooth is important to the Fig 5a. Landscape with Green. Detail reading of the painting. I have attempted to achieve the preciousness of Turner’s intricateness combined with the impact of Rothko’s scale and force, with the intention of drawing the viewer into the flows and obscure textures of the emerging landscape, almost as if witnessing its birth or creation. The final painting in the series, fig 5, has a more limited pallet and is smaller in scale to the others in the series; the central
focal point is placed to the left allowing it to emerge more gradually from right to left. Although my handling of paint is varied in different parts of the surface there is a more natural flow to this work. But it maintains the essence of the landscape. The gold textured areas are more integrated and I have allowed thin veins of gold to appear naturally within the painting. However ultimately I can only be honest in the visual language I speak and trust that when the viewer looks at my work they too will somewhat experience its intention. Picasso made reference to this when he said, ‘Beginning with Van Gogh, however great we may be, we are all in a measure, autodidacts – you might almost say primitive painters. Painters no longer live within a tradition and so each one of us must re-create an entire language’ (1990, p.67-68). In creating this language the onus for the painter is to have honest openness, to truth, to free expression without ego. This alert awareness with the absence of ego in the making of my paintings is primary, how any painter reaches this state can be a deeply personal one and is as varied as there are individuals, for some it may be to delve into their past or to use meditation or work from imagination to working directly from life, for me it is the process itself. Being inspired within and without, this inspiration which is easier understood when felt rather than explained in words. When felt then the choices of colours, composition and marks made become inspired rather than contrived. It is here, in that place, where I believe I am most open and most susceptible to creating my best paintings. The contemporary painters I have interviewed for my essay also acknowledge the importance of this openness during the process of creating, ‘I am aware when I have let go of a painting and it then leads the dance’. (Madden 2010). ‘A great painting is without ego, it is of the maker and completely separate of the maker, at the same time.... It is a search for truth and honesty, of knowing oneself and accepting oneself fully’ (Doran, 2010). ‘Through the exploration of the subject in paint, the painter moves towards the unconscious, moving to a stage that is instinctive, intuitive, and beyond deliberate intent’. (Gaynor, 2010). Bridget Riley also refers to this place that is beyond logic, beyond ego, beyond thinking, ‘There is an area, and a very sensitive primary area for an artist, which cannot be referred to directly without damage. It is as though the impulse which is about to be expressed should remain unavailable to the logic of the intellect in order to find its true form in whatever field or metier the artist has chosen’. Robert Kudielka, ‘The Eye’s Mind: Bridget Riley
Collected Writings 1965-1999’ (1999, p11). To these painters this spiritual awareness, this openness to the divine inspiration, plays an integral part and is an indispensable component in the process and expression of their artistic vision. So the painter must be ever vigilant, open and alert to this sensitive primary area. Thus the burden or struggle for the artist is to assess the level to which he is open and alert when new work is being created. Though the duty is surely on the artist to be open to these influences and honest in expressing them in his work I believe the circle is not complete until that connection is communicated to the viewer. Therefore the audience also plays a vital role, not merely as dormant observers of the painting being viewed, but as an active participant in completing the spiritual experience. Karen Stone makes reference to this in ‘Image and Spirit’ (2003, p13) when she says, ‘Viewers bear considerable responsibility for the artwork’s interpretation. Those who expect to sit passively by while the art does something to them are missing the point. It cannot be stated too strongly or too often that the viewer is a full partner in the transaction. Mark Rothko made reference to this when he said, ‘The instant a picture is completed, the artist becomes an outsider who must experience the work, like any other viewer, as revelation’. ‘Twentieth Century Artists on Art’ (1996, p248) Each of my paintings have their place in my evolution as a painter, but it seems inevitable as each new work is produced to experience this latest one as more special, this one satisfies my soul or hunger to create more than the previous work, perhaps this is because the latest work naturally reflects that moment of expression of where I’m at now. But this paradox of exhilaration and torment of each new work overshadowing the previous one is a constant recurrence for me as a painter, until time and distance is given, sometimes weeks or even years, I, the painter struggle to be truly impartial when reviewing the success of a series of works. Often it is only when reviewing or revaluating works with retrospection that I as the artist, have then become the viewer and am now more fully aware of the strengths and weaknesses within the series. Painting for me is an intuitive and instinctive act allowing me to enter that place of no mind, this place of no mind or alert awareness is a connection to the divine. But ultimately the success of the painting can only be truly judged by the painter himself, as only the painter can truly know the level of honesty given to its creation and therefore how more
open he was to inspiration or divine influence, how open was I to the creative process, of allowing, in the making of my work? This is the ongoing question that perhaps takes a lifetime to fully answer and for me painting is a lifetime pursuit. The great English painter Howard Hodgkin makes reference to this in his letter to John Elderfield, ‘one is continually making the kind of value judgements’ asking the same old questions: is this picture better than that one? Why? Is it more expressive? Is it of better quality? And of course the best is the enemy of the good, etc. (1995, p.217) John I. H. Bauer says, in ‘Nature and abstraction’ ‘I think the only pressing question in painting is: When are you through? For my own part it is when I know I’ve ‘come out the other side.’ This occasional and sudden awareness is the truest image for me. The clockwise path of this recognition suppresses a sense of victory; it is an ironic encounter and more of a mirror than a picture.’ (1958, p.18). This is one of the crucial questions I have asked myself over the past twenty five years as a painter and it is truly difficult to answer, however a point comes when I know I have to let go or perhaps if has let me go? a catharsis has taken place and released me from that particular work, until the next one, this is when I become an observer to its creation, that is probably one of the most compelling desires for me as a painter, is to witness it as a creation.
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