‘Green is a Myriad’
In my own words.
Growing.
Green feels like ‘growing’.
Green gives a sense of life, of movement, of happening.
Green is nature, is ever-changing, ever-moving, ever-adapting.
Green is not one colour.
Green is a myriad.
Green is a whole world of wonder, a sense of looking upwards and outwards, beyond where we
are.
Green is bursting with life, with possibilities and impossibilities.
Green is living, breathing, striving.
Green you are staring at is only green because of all the other greens around it.
Green is nothing on its own, it needs green of every shape and colour to be green.
Green isn’t ‘ripe’. Green is all that beautiful pre-ripe world.
Green is springing, growing, reaching and believing.
Green is naive and innocent and relentless and inquisitive.
Green is developing, learning, experiencing.
Green is happening, not happened.
Green is fresh, green is sharp, green is naive, Green is bursting with moisture.
Green you want to reach out to and touch, to run your hands along, to hold.
Green is impassive, it is physical and embracing and hugging.
Green is wild and wondrous and wishful
Green is imperfect and green is flawed, but green knows what it is and what it can be.
Green gives a sense of giving, of offering. Green is a ‘feeder’, green nurtures and nourishes.
Green isn’t an end, green does not reach, green never feels like it has arrived at a final destination.
Green is everything before that. Green has no conclusion, no glorious arrival.
Green is a journey and when growth ends green ends. Green is no longer green.
Green is not the past, green is not a tradition, green is not fixed, locked in, or just ‘one way’.
Green is not a place, not static, green is not stuck in the place it is.
Green is moving, green attracts, green causes reactions, makes you want to learn more,gives you the sense to seek out, to find, to discover.
Green is not green.
These paintings are not green.
These paintings are You, they are me, they are us.
They are simply something we stare at and wonder.
They are simply bursting with our own positive possibilities of what lies ahead of us.
If we let them be that.
We should never strive to ‘mature’, we should never want to ‘reach a point’, or arrive at our destination, for our uniqueness comes from knowing our destiny is simply growing.
Every second of every day growing, embracing growth, not fixing our future but living with it, embracing it, sharing in it, giving to others as to ourselves.
Always growing and never grown.
Reaching, never reached, ripening, never ripe, learning, never learned, happening, never happened.
Green is doing, never done.
And I hope with these paintings they are never understood, never given a definitive ‘full stop’ interpretation, but rather their meaning and relevance and understanding and what is seen and sensed constantly grows with every day and every person and every viewing.
‘Staccato’
In my own words.
"Dreamers,
they never learn,
they never learn,
beyond the point
of no return
of no return."
My mother always said I was a daydreamer.
She said I would spend hours and hours staring out, lost in my own world.
Silently, standing, dreaming.
My Mother died early in 2020.
And I miss her every day.
And she was right. I am a daydreamer.
But aren't we all. Really.
All daydreamers in our own unique way.
I have created these works especially for this exhibition, "Staccato'.
And they are made of this place.
Made of and made in Kenmare.
And the first time they have every been shown in public.
To be able to debut them here, is very very special to me.
For the last 18 months I have been lucky enough to be able to stare out and get lost in my own dreams, here.
Lost in this beautiful place, lost in the beautiful space between the land, the sea and the sky that lies in Kenmare bay.
That glorious gap between the Iveragh and the Beara.
The rising and falling and fading every moving moment, the never-ending ever-changing light.
It has captured my heart, mesmerised me, enslaved me.
I stand, still and stare and do everything I can do to absorb it all.
Take it all in and let it overwhelm my soul.
Every moment different from the one before.
Every breath a new one, every blink revealing a delicate change, a movement in the air.
As I watch my daydreams drift. Endlessly.
And when I go back into studio these paintings are what I'm driven to paint.
What wants to come back out.
Every brushstroke and mark made is critical to next one and then the next one.
And on and on.
Every layer of colour will influence and effect and mingle with the next layer as I physically bring them together.
An accumulation of thousands of individual expressions that always eventually come together as one piece.
Just like a daydream, I suppose.
I can only paint with massive energy and physicality.
Everything else is uninteresting to me.
It's the anticipation of the unexpected, what might happen, the searching for 'what's next'. Like the light and dark out there over the bay.
Even the smaller works are made of massive wide strokes whereby I leave half the painting on the floor of the studio.
Because that is where I paint. On the floor. Canvasses strewn across the floor allowing me to work and move in full 360 degrees around them.
It feels thus when I work the roles are reversed as the canvas is grounded, static, taped the ground, staring at me motionless and immovable
and me in constant motion and movement, like the land, the sea, the sky and the air in the bay.
My mum was right. I am a daydreamer.
But I'm not 'lost' in this world, but rather I think I'm 'found.'
I would like to give a huge thank you to Claire and everyone at the Kenmare Butter Market for creating such a brilliant space and for giving me the opportunity to show my paintings here along artists i have always admired. I feel very honoured and privileged and definitely humbled.
Note on the "Do Everything, Feel Nothing' (veiled light series).
Sometimes I stare.
And right before me everything disappears.
Nearly.
Everything that is beautiful I’m staring at becomes veiled.
Veiled by a blanket of mist, cloud, wet air.
The light still trying to burst out.
You keep staring and staring and the light and colours beyond, over there, we suddenly, once more reveal themselves.
If you stare long enough. That is.
A Place on
this Earth.
(Latitude 51.862758, longitude -9.676595)
Greenane Islands, near Kenmare.
A place.
One place.
At the edge of the world.
An expanse of light, of air, of colour, of movement, of silence.
As I stand continuously on the promontory at the end of Cuss Strand.
Latitude 51.862758, longitude -9.676595.
I lean forward as I stand. compensating for the wind always blowing in my face.
The slow, breathless movement of the tide is an ebb and then a flow.
In and then out. Like a conductor coaxing the last, floating notes from the orchestra. Drifting.
Infinite weather experiences as I stand here.
Four seasons in an hour.
Sometimes four right in front as you stare from right to left and then left to right.
Outwards & Upwards.
And the islands right in front of me.
I don't want to stare into an endless expanses.
I somehow wanted to stare at something. Something that was there. Grounded.
These small, low islands that are so often stared beyond, stared past. Uninhabited for decades yet bursting with past stories.
Like a floating flotsam of green life. Low slung.
Staring right back at me.
So close I can nearly reach out and touch them.
So close I could maybe wade out and make it over to them.
And they stare right back at me.
What stories they hold. Secrets.
Tales of unexpected adventures.
And the stillness. The disappearing tide revealing its soft seaweed laden underbelly. Without asking they reach out and hug me.
“Paul, we were here yesterday. We are here today. We will be here tomorrow.”
And beyond the islands the undulating Beara.
Ever-changing it’s colours as if it were a resting, observant Chameleon. In the shadows.
Touching the sky.
Going to this place,
I don't walk fast.
I potter.
A ponderous, rhythmic swaying.
I dwell on the feeling of the sound of the rocks, the stones, the seaweed, the sand under my feet. Soft then hard. Every step I become ever more absorbed.
I reach the end. I stand. I stare. I breathe. Slowly.
And then I dream.
I make up wondrous stories in my head and live them in my heart. The islands the stage and me just a player.
These paintings are not 'portraits' of a place.
They are light.
Constantly disappearing, rising and falling light. The softness of dawn, the humility of dusk.
When day passes to night and night passes to day. Absorbed.
Every painting for me is an enormous physical expression. Whatever its size. A continuous explosion of physical expression onto a canvas.
Every brushstroke going way beyond the boundaries of the canvas.
So much is left on the ground.
Left behind.
Every painting is a discovery.
Nature doesn't stop.
Nature constantly moves on, moves forward, never stopping in its journey. Nature never repeats, it constantly evolves, moment after moment after moment. Nature weathers, shapes, feeds, creates, destroys and heals.
These are not beautiful Islands.
This is just a place.
A place in this world.
A place on the edge of my world.
A place that feels unique and yet connected somehow with every other place in the world.
A place that has wrapped its arms around me and squeezed the life back into me.
Greenane Islands, near Kenmare, in Ireland. A Place, on this Earth.
D = √13H
A horizon is a prospect, a perspective, a possibility. Paul’s pieces presented here deal with the impenetrability of what lies beyond that space where the earth ends and the sky begins.
Technically, a horizon is a perceived line that separates earth from sky, apparently. Or more precisely the line that divides all of the directions one can possibly look into two categories: those which intersect the earth’s surface, and those which do not.
But a horizon can also define a scope, or a limitation. A limitation may be an externally imposed restriction that cannot be sidestepped, a restricting flaw, a disadvantage or weakness within the viewer. Or alternatively the setting of a limit, the act of limiting, can be a restriction on damage, a protection from what is beyond, unknowable. These works seem to signify the limitation of view, and guide the viewer to a consideration of what is beyond the line of sight, what might exist in the gap, outside of limitations.
A horizon also separates day from night. Dawn - the twilight before sunrise - is recognized by the presence of weak sunlight, while the sun itself is still below the horizon. It is the precise moment after which the sky is no longer completely dark, formally, defined as the time at which the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon in the morning. Dusk is accepted as the time frame that occurs after twilight - when the sky is still bright, but no sun accompanies it, the period of the day after the sun has gone but before the sky has become dark. Strictly it is the time at which the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon in the evening. Objects are distinguishable, some stars and planets start to become visible to the naked eye.
These works then also deal with the coming of light and the onset of darkness, periods when something is about to start or about to finish. Not a definite statement, but a growing awareness of a beginning or an end. An apprehension or a confidence is imparted to the viewer. An impression is conveyed of coming well-being or misfortune.
What is presented here is also part henge. The original henge concept was to create a space separate from the outside world and firmly focus attention on an internal point. Henges were used as solar declinometers to measure the position of the rising or setting sun. There is a sense that some ceremony may unfold, that there is something taking place other than what can be seen. At the centre, attention is focused from the construction back onto the viewer.
The straight line of sight, the distance to the true horizon, can be expressed as d = √13h, where d is the distance to the apparent line, and h is the height above ground or sea level of the eye of the observer. A mathematical bent will indicate this to be true also for Paul’s pieces.
Barry Henry
Paul Hughes goes
to the moon
by Lise Hand
“WHAT the?”....mumbled Paul Hughes, as his eyelids sprang apart like guilty lovers caught in mid-shag.
He wasn’t sure which unmerciful sensation had woken him: the almighty bang which sounded like a nuclear warhead being detonated precisely six feet from his left ear, the vicious shuddering of the small room which convinced him he was in the grip of some hurricane named after a girl, or the disconcerting sensation that a large, angry elephant was sitting squarely on his chest.
Paul desperately tried to silence the German oompah band which was making merry just behind his eyeballs. He had to think. Where the hell was he? But with all the racket, the shaking and the elephant-feeling and - he groggily realised - a hellish hangover, his thoughts were as greasy as a leftover chip buttie.
“Where the fuck am I?” he croaked, trying to hoist himself off the nest of silver blankets piled in the corner of what looked like a small, windowless storeroom. But he couldn’t move. The invisible elephant had him well pinned down. He lay back defeated. If he was in a hurricane, then this room was probably the best place for him.
Mind you, the travel agent in Dublin had sworn up and down that the hurricane season wouldn’t hit Florida until much later in the season. “Rest assured, we only send northsiders to Orlando when the hurricanes are due,” he had told them.
“Jen will have his bollix for earrings when we get home,” thought Paul, and despite his predicament, felt briefly sorry for the guy. But then he was seized by panic. Where WAS Jen?
Then through the fuggy cobweb of his brain, he remembered. He had waved her and the kids off at Miami airport yesterday morning (“assuming it was yesterday,” he groaned, clutching his battered skull). He was staying on in America for a couple of extra days. Rothco had just landed a prestigious new American client, NASA, and he was meeting with the head guys to brainstorm some ideas.
He had been so excited when the call came. NASA were going back to the Moon, but Houston had a problem. “The Moon ain’t sexy. It’s just a big frigging ball of nothing in particular,” explained NASA’s director, Colonel Truman T. Speissberger. “It doesn’t have any little green men. It doesn’t even have a Starbucks, for chrissake. We need to brand the goddam thing. Turn it into the iPod of the solar system,” he barked. “I was told that you are an expert on astronomy....though there is the question of your injury,” added Colonel Speissberger.
Paul was puzzled. “What were you told about me?” he asked cautiously.
“Just that you are a bleeding spacer,” explained the colonel.
Paul reassured the NASA big wheel that he was in excellent health, and two weeks later, here he was, making his pitch for the Moon. But where exactly was he?
He vaguely remembered hitting a few bars after the meeting with a couple of friendly rocket scientists. The first bar they had walked into was almost empty. One of the scientists looked around and shook his head. “Let’s get out of here. It’s like the Moon in here. No atmosphere”.
The second bar was much better, and the three of them tackled the cocktail list: Sex on The Sea of Tranquility, Michael Collins, Cosmospolitans, and trays of Slippery Shuttle shots.
But try as he might, Paul couldn’t remember much about leaving the bar. He dimly recalled the giggling scientists promising to get him a ringside seat for the moon launch at sunrise, then there was some sort of jeep ride, and a lot of shushing as they tried to tiptoe into some sort of small building. But he could remember no more. If only the infernal racket would stop, maybe he could fill in the gaps.
And right then, all the commotion suddenly stopped. The brutal shaking and eye-popping roaring ceased, and the elephant vanished off his chest. Paul blew a sigh of relief, and sat up. And up. And up. He floated gently off the floor, and drifted upwards.
His stomach churned and his mind reeled, as it began to dawn on him just where he was. But he wasn’t going to panic, he thought, as he bumped gently against the ceiling. He took a deep breath: “AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH! GETMEFUCKINGOUUTOFHEEEEEERE!”
Seconds later, the hatch-like door drifted open, and a tall lanky figure floated into the room. The man stared in utter disbelief at the sight of a shaven-headed, goateed bloke in a lurid blue and orange Hawaiian shirt dotted with palm-trees and bananas bobbing about, clutching his head with one hand, and a cold, half-eaten kebab in the other.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” yelled the man in total shock. “Are you a Chinese spy or what?”he demanded.
Paul recognised the guy immediately. He was Commander Geronimo Murphy, captain of the Britney I space shuttle. His mother was a Cherokee from Tennessee, and his father an Apache from Darndale.
“Do I look like a shagging Chinaman?” shouted Paul, waving his kebab in slo-mo. “This is someone’s idea of taking the piss. I’m supposed to be branding the moon, not flying to the fucking thing!”
Geronimo paled. “You’re having me on, bud! Are you trying to tell me you’re a stowaway?
Unfriggingbelievable,” he shook his head, aghast. “Now what the hell are we going to do!” he muttered, grabbing Paul’s foot as it floated past. He turned in mid-air and expertly glided back out through the door, dragging Paul like a sack of rubbish behind him. “Wait till the folks back on Earth get a load of this!” he muttered.
“What do you mean, back on Earth!” shrieked Paul. “We’ve just taken off! Turn the rocket around!” The astronaut chuckled grimly. “This isn’t a fucking Ryanair flight, dick-brain. We’re already 50,000 miles from Cape Canaveral. There is no going back, unless NASA want to chuck the whole mission down the toilet.”
Geronimo suddenly grabbed Paul’s leg and hauled him down through a narrow round hatch.”Guess what guys - we’ve got a fourth for poker,” he announced. As Paul tumbled into the room, he grabbed hold of a metal rail and jerked to a halt. Now there were two more pairs of eyes staring at him in utter disbelief. In the shocked silence, all Paul could hear was the gravelly voice of Johnny Cash in the background, moaning about his Ring of Fire. Dimly, Paul found himself hoping that the lads had some Green Day or Interpol CDs, otherwise it was going to be a long trip.
Then the silence was shattered and Johnny drowned out by a babble of questions from the two other astronauts, who Paul knew were Sam Silvermint and Homer Bush.
But he wasn’t listening; he was struck dumb by the sight outside the window in front of him. For there, suspended in the inkiest blackness he’d ever seen, was the Moon, bigger and brighter than usual. He turned, and out the back window was a visibly-shrinking Earth. This was no nightmare - he was in outer space. His stomach suddenly lurched. “Sorry about this,” he interrupted apologetically. “But I think I’m about to barf”.
That shut the trio up, as they floated about in a panic, trying to find a sick-bag. “Shit,” shouted Geronimo. “I’m not doing my first moonwalk while covered in bits of kebab! Just take some deep breaths, willya?” he demanded.
Paul did as he was asked, and slowly he began to feel a little better. The three astronauts regarded him perplexedly. “What are we gonna do with him?” moaned Homer Bush. “Maybe he’s a member of Al-Qaeda! Is he Osama in disguise!” he said excitedly. The other pair threw their eyes upwards, and Paul stifled a grin. He’d read that the only reason Homer was on board was that the President thought that sending his cousin into space would be good for his ratings. Dubya would’ve gone himself, but NASA couldn’t fit his exercise bike into the rocket.
Sam snorted. “Homer - go make us some coffee while we phone home about our ET here,” he ordered, as the First Cousin floated dejectedly towards the galley.”And make mine a skinny decaff latte!” Sam yelled after him.”
“I thought you guys just ate and drank space-pills,” remarked an impressed Paul. “Hell no,” said Sam. “We got Jamie Oliver to cater this trip. It’s veal parmigiana and summer vegetables for dinner tonight. And a cheeseboard,” he said, licking his lips.
The Commander sighed and sat in front of a large screen which looked like a plasma tv. “It’ll be someone’s ass roasted for dinner tonight, when they find out about this looper,” he muttered, flicking a switch. “Erm, Britney calling. We have a problem..” he began.
“Britney, why aren’t you on visual?” demanded a disembodied voice.
“Well, we’ve just discovered that we’re carrying some unusual extra payload,” said Geronimo cautiously.
At that moment, 50,000 miles below, the head of mission control, Jasper M Bunberger, was showing off to a select handful of television reporters who were touring the control centre. It was then he made his fateful decision.
“Don’t be silly, Britney,” he said jovially, reaching for the visual override button. “So Homer managed to sneak his collection of Ken and Barbie dolls on board.....?” he smirked as the screen lit up.
And so it came to pass that images of Paul Hughes trying to stay upright while blowing on his too-hot latte were simultaneously beamed around the globe. The pandemonium was immediate, especially when NASA confirmed that the mission would continue. “As long as Mr Hughes stays indoors and doesn’t touch anything, he’ll be fine,” Jasper M Bunberger assured the packed press conference.
The Irish nation went into celebration. Not only was Paul the first Irishman in space, but he’d bunked onto the rocket while totally shit-faced. “That’s exactly how St Brendan sailed to the New World,” explained Gerry Ryan to his listeners. “He was heading for an early house on Clare Island, but missed the turn and just kept going”.
There was an initial fuss when it was discovered that Paul could be claimed by the Brits as one of their own, and Tony Blair quietly offered to hand the North back to the Republic, if the Republic handed over Paul. But Bertie was having none of it. “Shag off, Tony,” he roared. “I’ve just ordered a new tin of fruit from Louis Copeland for the welcome home hooley. Find yer own rocket to bunk onto!”
Not everyone was thrilled. Paul was happily snacking on a delicate crab-cake, when suddenly a familiar voice boomed out from the screen behind him. “You’re a total plonker, you know”.
Paul tried to smile. “Jen! Look - I would’ve called, but I couldn’t get a signal here in outer space. Not even texting works!” he said weakly, waving his mobile phone at the screen, from where his wife’s thunderous countenance glared at him.
“Well, what the fuck are you doing there in the first place? Is Disco with you? And now there’s millions of bloody reporters surrounding the house - I can’t even back out the Merc without running over a couple of them,” she fumed. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to be back in time for the dinner at Ciara McAllister’s on Saturday, are you?”
“Christ,” whispered Geromino from the corner. “The first man to be nagged in space!”
Paul ignored him. “Listen honey, I know I fucked up, but I’ll bring you home something special..” he said, but Jenny just snorted. “You better be the first man to find a diamond mine on the moon, in that case - hang on, the kids want to say hello”.
Paul smiled as the lovely face of his daughter Ruby popped into view. “Hello sweetie,” he said tenderly.
They chatted about the solar system and stuff for a while, then Ruby paused. “Now dad. Will you promise me one thing?” she asked seriously.
“Of course, pet,” he said.
“Don’t do anything uncool while you’re on the Moon, ok?”
Paul waited for the blond head of his son Harry to appear, but there was no sign of him. He could hear Jen in the background shouting at him to come and say hello to daddy. Then he just had time to hear Harry’s voice faintly protest, “I’m watching Drake and Josh! I’ll be along in a minute!” before the screen went blank.
Much to his surprise, Paul found himself beginning to enjoy the three-day trip to the Moon - although the trauma of finding out how astronauts had to poo in zero-gravity was enough to make him swear off solid food until they returned to Earth.
He got on excellently with Geronimo and Sam, and the three of them had great fun picking on Homer - although in retrospect, they probably shouldn’t have covered the back window with black paper and told him that his cousin had lost the plot and blown up Earth. It had taken them hours to calm Homer down.
And his family had become quite famous back home; Jen had re-appeared to show him the lovely spread in ‘Hello!’ of herself and the kids in their beautiful, well-appointed Blackrock mansion, and to announce that Mary Harney had turned up on the doorstep to ask her to run for the PD’s in the next election. “For a horrible moment I thought she was that Shinner, Mary-Lou, and I almost told her to feck off!” cackled Jen.
Then, on the third day, Paul was taking a nap when he felt someone shake him. “Get up, Paul,” said Sam hurriedly. “We’re almost there, so we need our space suits!”. Paul reluctantly crawled off his cosy nest of silver space suits. They made such a comfy bed.
By then time he made his way up to the main cockpit, he found that Britney had already arrived at the dark side of the moon, where they were due to make the first-ever landing. No human had ever walked on the far side of the planet, and Paul felt a surge of pride that he was present to witness this special moment in time.
“Dang!” Geronimo suddenly said, pointing to the surface. “I can’t believe the Germans beat us to it - isn’t that a towel on the ground down there?” They were all laughing so heartily that they almost overshot the landing-site, a flat stretch of dirt, beside a large round rock.
As the Britney slowly descended and settled onto the site, Sam looked at his map and frowned. “That rock isn’t marked here. It must be a recent asteroid,” he said, puzzled.
They all gathered around the window and regarded the strange rock. Sam shrugged: “Well, it’ll take a couple of hours to set up communications with Earth from this side, so we’ll have to figure -”
Suddenly, the rock came alive. Small round portholes of light began of dance on its pitted black surface and a low rumble rose from it. As the four of them watched in appalled horror, a portion of the ‘rock’ began to yawn open.
Homer began to whimper. “Oh my god! It’s Al-Qaeda! We’re all gonna die!”
Geronimo whipped around and felled Homer with a well-placed right-hook, knocking him out cold. “You moron! Anyone except a brain-dead halfwit can see it’s a UFO!” he shouted.
The Commander turned to Paul and Sam, who were frozen to the spot as they shook with fear and excitement. “This is it, fellas! We’re about to enter history. We are standing on the brink of a new dawn, when we extend the olive branch of humanity to alien travellers who have traversed the universe to answer our age-old question. No, we are not alone,” he intoned.
Sam stared at him. “Did you just make that up now?” he asked.
They all fixed their eyes on the open hatch, wondering what sort of creatures would emerge. Did they want to meet or eat the Earthlings? Would they look all cute like ET, or would they be more like the hideous yoke that exploded out of John Hurt’s belly in ‘Alien’? The suspense was unbearable.
“Look!” croaked Geronimo, grabbing onto Sam’s arm. “Someone’s coming out!
They held their breath as a figure slowly emerged from the darkness of the alien craft. It carefully stepped out of the shadows and stood still, waiting.
Geronimo and Sam couldn’t believe it. The creature was tall, roughly human in shape. It had three eyes, which were surrounded by a growth of what looked like ginger short-cropped hair which circled its head and which ended in an untidy tuft at its chin. But most startling was the space suit which covered its entire body from neck to feet. Made from a thin, shimmery silk-like material, it was oddly familiar. It was blue and orange, and patterned with palm trees and bananas.
The two astronauts looked at the alien, then slowly turned as one and stared at Paul.
Paul grinned and reached for a sliver of foie gras. “Deadly,” he said happily. “They’re just like us”.
The End
Free at Last
'A Love of Life'
(For just a moment in time)
Paul has been painting for a long time but it is only in more recent years he has let his work be shown in public. He admits to a reluctance he had to let any of it go. He built up a strong personal following over the years and gradually he began to let pieces be shown as part of larger shows. This slow emergence culminated in his first solo show in the Tramyard Gallery in Dalkey in the spring of 2007.
His work isn't instantly accessible. It can polarise and alienate. But those who spend time with a painting find they very quickly build strong relationship with it. He has continually refused to be restrained by size and when he begins a piece of work it is not predetermined what size it will end up. The painting itself tends to dictate this as it progresses.
He paints on unstretched rolls of canvas which gives him freedom to let the painting go wherever it wants to. His preferred canvas is unprimed as the canvas itself absorbs the paint and the painting and the canvas become one. The act of painting itself then primes the canvas ensuring permanency.
The piece donated by Paul today, with all proceeds going to SeaChange, is called 'A MOMENT OF FREEDOM'. It is from a series of exploratory work Paul continually creates, whilst working on other projects, wherein he tries to capture the impact of specific 'moments' in time. Every moment is over as soon as it happens, lost in time, washed away. So all that remains of each moment is an impression, a memory left behind. And life is nothing but a whole series of these individual moments joined together.
For the last year Paul has been solely focussed on painting and not exhibiting, working on a new body of work called 'staring through trees' for planned exhibition at the end of 2008, in Dublin. He works out of his studio, an old pig barn, in Blackrock. It leaks.
"I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybody's life, my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got? All I could do was sit there and watch him die."
Deckard, Blade Runner
Poesy 99 / 00
“Not really knowing where or when”.
A series of writings put together in the absence of sustained drink.
Ignore
Pressure pushes then numbs,
to the point of being slightly pointless,
because you cannot feel what
should hurt but displaced
pain in a part different.
Depressing with spreading thumb,
'til the area is white,
devoid of blood, feeling without a sense.
Distracted about other trivia,
the thing that matters is gone,
forgotten, white, colourless,
shouting pain but not heard.
'til later, suppressed, then unsurpassed.
Free to feel, we look elsewhere.
Lick
Ignore me
go away
do
other things
describe the way it is
and I say it is.
but no bodies felt like you
your skin is a magnet
white
with freckles
innocent of all wanting
knowing the feeling but denial
no bodies ever knew
and never will.
Taste
I lick the moisture around my lips,
smile,
need to reknew
through
lipsalve.
Tongue feels finger,
Licks,
heaves a sigh surrounding,
breathe, the tips of a finger.
Need to reknew
through
lipsalve.
Untitled I
All the faces they look the same
but no one stares at you,
unaware of what you now are.
Just in case
no one is the same,
just in case,
unaware of what you might be.
Unaware of what you are.
Not knowing not caring,
awaiting you to declare.
I said, say, will say nought.
I was, am and always will be.
Amen.
Untitled II
I have no feeling,
no emotion takes over,
I stare at the eyes that stare at me.
They want me to look,
to stare at them,
to take in what ever I might show.
From that
sell on,
insular
again some time
mine
Untitled III
His head leans forward,
glasses slip quietly below.
He threatens to tell,
you want him to tell.
You always have but
he has remained stifled
by a desire
to take care.The Singer
The singer
shakes his head stoccato style,
eyes closed, open, closed, closed and closed again.
The singer sings,
head nestles in his shoulder,
nestles, rocks, nestles and nestles again.
Eyes open and closed and stay closed.
foot taps and again and again
and then the drum taps.
Sing you singer for all your worth
because this is your value
and I love you.
The Wanting
You say nought,
You do nought.
I feel nought,
But not anymore. I love you.
Convince
Feeling joy is good,
don't feel bad,
sad,
unusual complaint,
to share the joy and
to be taken
to be insecured.
Relax.
Don't fear the fear.
Hello.
Very Ape
Very ape 1.55.
Rape me 2.49.