Rathfarnham Castle - wall textures

 A few weeks ago I was at Rathfarnham Castle to see the current exhibitions, which I blogged about here and here, but I also wanted to have some photos taken of the various wall textures. From previous blogs, about Rathfarnham Castle and other old and/or ancient sites, you will already know how these things fascinate me! As I am getting a small brochure made for my own exhibition, Memory Is My Homeland, in Rathfarnham Castle next spring, I decided I wanted some of the building's texture to feature in the background of the brochure, images of my artwork and information in the foreground. The first floor of Rathfarnham Castle, where the exhibition will be, features amazing walls especially in The Dining Room, where most of these pictures were taken.

This pic is from the same section of wall but leaving out the structural "framing".

I think this is actually outside The Dining Room near the stairwell, but I really love the way the plasterwork restoration has left some of the bare wall structure to be revealed.

Whether the peeling is from ancient wallpaper or paint jobs, I love the layering that has been left visible on the surface of the wall when the building was restored.

This area doesn't have as much layering, but there is a pleasant grittiness to the surface.

This is from the same section of wall as the previous.

When restoring the castle, the walls of other rooms were not left so distressed and there is a fabulous contrast in some of the fine plasterwork restoration with the walls of The Dining Room.

I remember seeing images of the work of Canadian painter, Andrea Bolley, back in the late 70s when I attended the Gallery School at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto (which I have previously mentioned here), and at the time her paintings were obsessed with layers on construction hoardings and billboards. I found this visual obsession with time really interesting then and I still do. Toronto is most definitely a new world city, though, and images of the passage of time can only be gleaned from the modern. Rathfarnham Castle is Elizabethan in time period, so this layering shows time on a much older level! For further information on Rathfarnham Castle go directly to their website, here.