Regional Focus
Visual Artists' News Sheet | July – August 2021
Glebe House and Gallery
Donegal
Jean Kearney Head Guide
The Winds are Wilder Paul Hallahan Visual Artist THE WINDS ARE ferocious, the rains are heavi-
er, and the cold can get inside your bones, but when the sun appears in the north west, it all becomes clearer to me why I made the move to south Donegal in mid-2020. For a number of years, I dreamed of moving out of Dublin to a more relaxed, rural community. The north west was always on my radar as somewhere I would love to live and work. Moving back to Dublin in 2015 after a brief period in land-locked Berlin (I need the ocean), the city gave me a lot and helped me refocus on my practice while taking in the energy of the city. I had slightly side-lined my practice and spent the years after college curating and running a gallery in Waterford. While at times I enjoyed thinking about art through exhibition-making, I also knew I stumbled into curation without a formal decision. Between 2014 and 2015, I decided to be an artist. Over a five-year period, I worked all sorts of day jobs to support my practice and, like many artists, after working a full day, I would go to the studio in the evenings and weekends. After a period of working intensely in my studio, and in Independent Studios Dublin, I was able to start showing my works to the world. That studio space, above any other spaces, helped me refocus and direct all of my energy into my work. I owe that studio a lot. It was a surprise to me that my practice moved towards painting from primarily video, but within the medium I felt I could control time better and explore ideas in-depth. It also allowed me to portray ideas better than I could in moving image, text or installation. Living and working in Dublin for a time was energetic, but many different aspects of living and working there were making life harder for me. There is a great artistic community, but I did feel the city as a lifestyle choice offered me less and less. Getting engulfed by bus diesel fumes while cycling to the studio every morning was
Paul Hallahan, studio view; photograph courtesy the artist.
getting tiresome. Then an opportunity came up in mid-2020. My housemates were also looking to move; we all knew the north west area and especially Bundoran and south Donegal. So we began looking for somewhere to rent and we luckily found a house and made the move in late summer. It’s still all new to me here, and the difference of knowing somewhere you have visited compared to living there is vast. It has been above and beyond the best decision for me and it’s funny to think I had reservations last year. The winter was hard with very short days, intense storms and bitter cold, but there is no better way to get to know a place than to live through its winter. As I arrived, I was working on a solo exhibition, ‘Running, returning, running’, for Roscommon Arts Centre and a two-person exhibition, ‘Everybody knows’, for The Complex, so I initially finalised that work when I moved here. I did know a few people in the area before moving, and with the help of local artist Celina Muldoon, I was able to privately rent a new studio locally. This new studio has invigorated my practice. I feel the mental space of living by the sea and in the countryside has affected my work positively. I have started several new series of paintings and while I don’t directly expect the landscape of this beautiful place to be part of new works right now, I know it will eventually enter the work somehow. It has been an odd time to make such a move with all normal businesses closed since I arrived, but even so, it has been great for me. There is an energy of creative people in the north west I did not expect to be so strong, and I look forward to things opening back up again fully so I can meet and engage with more artists. So far, I have met a number of artists based up here in the north west and the place has won over my heart. Bring on the wild winds, the heavy rain, bitter cold and sunny days! paulhallahan.com
James Dixon, HMS ‘Wasp’ Gunboat Wrecked off Tory Island, Ireland, undated, c. 1960s, mixed media on paper; image courtesy Glebe House and Gallery.
SITUATED 14KM OFF the northwest coast of
Donegal and surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Tory Island is the most remote of Ireland’s inhabited islands. It is a place that people have called home for over 4,500 years. The island is steeped in history with pre-historic and early Christian remains. It is an island of music, song and stories, where the incredible spirit of the people shines through. It was on Tory Island that James Dixon ( Jimmy Dhonnchaidh Eoin) was born on 2 June 1887. He had one sister, Grainne, and three brothers Johnnie, Dennis and Hughie. They were a seafaring family and their skills as fishermen and boat-builders were well-known throughout the community. Aside from the occasional visit to the mainland, Dixon remained on Tory Island his entire life. He was a wonderful character, whose gentle unassuming nature belied his intelligence and skill. He always had a pipe in hand and the top of his index finger was scorched from tapping the tobacco in his pipe. It was on a sunny Sunday morning in the summer of 1956, that Dixon first encountered Derek Hill – an artist who subsequently lived for nearly thirty years in Glebe House, later bequeathing it to the Irish state, along with his extensive private art collection. Hill was painting down by the foreshore on the island, looking out across the sea to the beautiful mountains on the mainland. He became aware of someone watching him paint. That someone was Dixon, who was seventy years old at the time. Little did they know that this chance meeting would change and enrich both of their lives and indeed inspire many people throughout the world. A conversation struck-up between the two men; Hill asked Dixon what he thought of his painting. Dixon looked at the painting and then looked at Hill and said that he thought that he could do a lot better if he tried! Hill was intrigued and later that evening he made his way to Dixon’s house, where he encouraged him to paint, giving him tubes of paint and some paper. However, Dixon declined the use of a paintbrush and instead insisted on making his own paintbrush from the hair cut from his donkey’s tail. Hill did
not teach Dixon to paint but encouraged him to develop his own style. Dixon set to work. He drew inspiration from his island home and the wild Atlantic storms that frequently battered Tory and the ships that were lost, interspersed with myth and legends passed down through the generations by the island’s storytellers. He painted events he had heard about, such as the sinking of the Titanic. He depicted them looking down upon the event from the sky – a bird’s eye view. He often wrote an inscription in a small rectangle in the corner of each of his paintings, providing details of the work with his name and the date. His paintings provide a unique record of his life on his beloved island. Hill was impressed with his work and said that he knew that he was in the presence of a genius. Hill likened Dixon’s work to that of the Cornish artist, Alfred Wallis. Hill introduced Dixon’s artworks to the world, helping Dixon to become an important figure in the history of twentieth-century Irish art. Dixon had his first solo exhibition in 1966 at the New Gallery in Belfast, containing 21 paintings. This was followed shortly afterwards by another exhibition of his work at the Portal Gallery in London. He also exhibited at the Dawson Gallery in Dublin and the Autodidakt Gallery in Vienna. In the years following his death, Dixon’s paintings were included in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally including Queen’s University Belfast, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Glebe Gallery in Donegal and in galleries in Vienna, London and New York. Dixon continued to paint in his own unique style and his friendship with Hill lasted up until Dixon’s death in 1970. Through his example, and with encouragement from Hill, the school of Tory Island Artists was born. We’ll leave the last word to Dixon, who once said: “Painting has got me to places I never could have gone.” glebegallery.ie
