'To the island'

Oil on board, 122cm x 183cm, 4ft x 6ft
© David Begley 2009
Exhibited at Cherrylane Fine Arts, Wicklow November - December 2009
Commissioned, Private collection, Ireland.

See text and detail image below

I had a palette in mind and the words ‘allegory’, ‘light and space’ and ‘hope’. The idea of an island had been rustling about for a while. Whilst living in Germany last year I became more aware that I am an Islander, of what this brings to one’s consciousness. The ebb, the flow. We are both insular and free spirited. When we think of an ‘island’ we may imagine a beach, silence, calm, escape, the exotic. So my thoughts began for this work.

Having visited galleries in Germany, Rembrandt, Durer, Patinier, The Flemish and German Schools made a strong impression on me: their starkness, their weight. Much of the work is monochromatic. These gallery visits led to the work ‘Ship of Fools’ [2008] which in turn has led in genre and process to ‘To the island’. For a long time I have tried to retain the under painting, and its underlying construction in a work. How, through this construction the eye may navigate a painted space.

A painting can be at its truest point at an early stage of the work, so much of what we see in the “completed” painting conceals what lies beneath, and often its impetus [I have found] may be lost. Whilst retaining many of these initial marks allows the work to breathe, it creates a pressure on the first marks placed - the under painting, as within twenty four hours this layer becomes too dry to work into further. The gesso ground is crucial to how the first layer of turpentine and paint etch the surface. For ‘Into the island’ I used twelve layers of gesso, sanded in between layers then began with an umber wash. The following layers were applied thinly, all the time retaining certain elements of the composition and reducing others, whilst being open to secondary images within this process of building.

Much of my work from 2007 to the present is based on perspective. How perspective / perception changes through experience and through travel and time. How perspective is reduced in fear and expanded in love. In ‘To the island’ the [painted] perspective is constantly shifting, figures are minute, figures are giants. Two viewpoints are presented simultaneously. The distant view is upon us before we come to it, depending on which route the eye chooses.

David Begley November 2009