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.

Eternal City - early days yet!

I was in Rome for the second time a few years ago, and did this sketch of the Teatro Marcellus. There was something about it, and I knew it was a foil to my painting that I was working on at the time, Fractured City. So the intention to paint this was always there, the sketch a little kernel for the future.

For Incognito 2017, the fundraiser for the Jack & Jill Foundation, I conceived of three "cityscape" postcards. So  still the painting was on my mind.

I took a printmaking workshop at the beginning of April this year in order to learn the Chine collé technique and quickly did an intaglio from my sketch.

Finally, I unrolled some canvas, quite a large piece (takes up most of the wall in my attic studio) and blocked in Eternal City.

I started to apply metal leaf in the negative areas behind the architectural structures.

I had applied some texture before blocking in the painting, but then decided that I wanted some rougher texture on the older part of the Teatro building.

I will gesso over this scrim burlap and re-block before I get into the meat of painting.

The texture of the columns is mostly smooth rather than canvas.

Canvas Panels

As well as the enjoyment I get from looking at works of art when visiting art galleries and museums, I am always mindful of the way things are presented. It is interesting to examine the relationship between a piece of artwork and the architecture it is within, how it is hung on the wall, if it is framed or unframed and what might be the reasons for the way in which it is presented. It is liberating to me when I see artworks hung in atypical ways and sometimes that inspires me to come out of my usual way of working (i.e., painting on stretched canvas).

I think it was in the spring of this year that I decided to make use of leftover strips of canvas by sewing them together with loops at the top to facilitate future hanging. Here is the composite canvas hanging out to dry after I washed it, I had plans for it, a Fever Afterimages painting, but I wanted to do some monoprints and small paintings first (which I did -- images on previous posts!).

Yesterday I did an ironing job on the composite canvas and (with the assistance of my husband) hung it up on the studio wall. I am still not ready to start painting, as I want to put some texture on it, and also may have a few tiny works to do, but soon, soon...

Fever Afterimages - some finished paintings!

I've finished the other two small canvases, but I am posting the first one again so all three can be seen together. They are all the same size, 40.5 cm x 51 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2014. I created the texture before painting began by gluing newsprint onto the canvas.

Fever Afterimage 3:

Fever Afterimage 2:

Fever Afterimage1:

Fever Afterimages

Though I haven't quite finished with my "Moments" series (there is at least one more related painting that I want to do) -- I have had ideas for another group of monoprints and a painting percolating for the past year! With this in mind, I started preparing canvas. The painting will be a free-hanging piece, unstretched. I am making use of end pieces of canvas, I have sewn 5 pieces together and made hanging loops. I wanted to pre-soak the canvas, so here it is hanging outside to dry. I plan to apply texture in the form of newsprint glued on, though it will be completely covered by paint not as per Maritime Alps and Tree Kids where the paint was translucent. 

As is my usual practice, ideas for new work generally show up on my greeting cards first. These were all created in 2013 for various occasions. I haven't yet decided on the composition or colouration for the painting, but I expect to have it worked out with the help of the monoprints and drawings, which I am starting this week.

 I am titling this body of work "Fever Afterimages". For once I am not tentative about the title!

New Triptych - Maritime Alps

 I have been working on a new triptych, again taking up a large part of the north wall in my attic studio. I worked out the composition in white chalk on kraft paper and then started gluing newsprint on the rock and mountain areas to create some texture before I started painting. This is a detail of two of the climbing figures.

And here is a detail of the child figure at the far right of the triptych.

This is a detail of the reaching mother figure.

I started off painting with some blue, the water around the rocks and behind the figures leading to the mountains in the distance. The mountains in the distance are the Maritime Alps, the painting inspired by our visits to Antibes. While I was painting I was thinking of the work of Betty Goodwin, specifically her figures in water which I admired greatly in the 1980s and of Jean Charles Blais, whose work I first came across this summer at the Picasso Museum in Antibes.

I keep referring to the painting as Maritime Alps, so I am sure this name will stick. I like it - not just for the mountains in the background, but for the figures climbing the mountain of rocks. With the xmas season soon to be in full swing, I am not expecting to get a lot of work done on this in the coming weeks, but the painting will look at me every time I go up to the attic, so it will stay in my thoughts.

Still working away!

I am happily working away on my triptych, tentatively called "Tree Kids". I thought I would post a couple of details to give a better view of the texture in the painting. The figures are almost life size. This is a closeup of the figure based on K.

This picture gives an idea of the leaves in the tree, and the Chinese paper that I glued on before I started painting.