a dossier of recent work

by

Patrick Michael Fitzgerald

2012

a dossier of recent workbyPatrick Michael Fitzgerald2012

Contents

- Texts:

an interview # 7

an essay by Chris Ashley # 11

a world of paint by Frank Lubbers # 17

farming drawing by Sherman Sam # 23

a review by John Yau # 26

- Paintings # 29

- Drawings # 55

- Biography # 73

- Bibliography # 76

Borrascoso 2012, oil & collage on linen, 61 x 50.5 cm (detail, see page 41)

An interview with Patrick MichaelFitzgerald which first appeared in thecontemporary painting bloghttp://standardinterview.blogspot.comin February 2011.

Can you briefly describe what you do?

I am a painter. I use mostly conventional painting materials – oilpaint on canvas primarily. More recently, I have been using collageon my paintings as well; bits of cut canvas, cloth or paper. Myworking process is quite organic and I like the materiality and di-rectness of painting. Each painting is a kind of entity or body,they are layered and grow in unexpected ways, they are meshed andwoven together using different painterly components, small gesturesand marks, threads and lines, swathes and bands. I like the idea ofcultivation and gardens and the paintings often refer to these di-rectly or indirectly. Obviously, colour, light and form are essen-tial elements in my work but also the qualities of surface,tactility and touch are very important too. I have come to under-stand that painting is as much about energy as anything else, noth-ing is really solid and finally formed. I have always made drawingstoo and they have equal value to my paintings. The paintings feedinto the drawings and the drawings feed into the paintings in equalmeasure.

What drives you to make work?

I think it probably comes from a need to bear a different kind ofrelationship towards so-called reality. A reality - which perhapsdue to my own character traits - I frequently cannot help feelingdisappointed or even disgusted by. One does everything despite on-self, what at first might seem like an escape from reality, is notreally an escape at all, but rather, over the years, the slow for-mation of a new relationship to reality and being, one that is moreintense and free. On one level (and thinking of Kierkegaard) what Ido is like marking the stages on life's way, hopefully with a cer-tain grace. It is do with time and recognising one's inevitablepassing.

Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?

I walk to my studio in the morning and spend most of the day there. I always have a number of paintings and drawings on the go at thesame time.

7Piel/Forming 2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm (detail, see page 61)

I probably spend more time in the studio looking and thinkingthan physically working. The physical interventions are oftenquite quick though works can take a long time to make. My de-cisions are often governed by what could be loosely describedas a kind of negative theology; I act in relation to what I donot want to do, to what I want to avoid doing. Essentially,this is just a tactic I have adopted to be able to deal withrisk and failure.

How long have you been working in that way?

For a few years. My earlier work was more varied in its use ofsupports and perhaps more hermetic. I would often make woodenbox-like structures that projected from the wall but they al-ways had a very obvious front plane and were to be looked atand considered as paintings. They tended to be objects lost inthe world. Now the paintings have more of an inward qualityand are lost in themselves.

Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?

There are many but I should mention Pierre Bonnard, Raoul deKeyser, Edvard Munch, Piet Mondrian…

What, outside visual art, informs your practice?

Anything, potentially, especially the stuff of my immediateeveryday life, though it's often difficult to explain how it’sall filtered and transformed into something new as a painting;things remembered, the pattern on a summer dress, shadows on apath, trees (always trees), the profile of someone leaningagainst a bar, fragments of newspaper photographs, the cornerof a room, someones face...

Music is very important for me, and certain kinds of cinema aswell; Robert Bresson for example. I’m always reading somethingtoo, bits of poetry, aphoristic writings, philosophical re-flections, short stories , history….the newspaper!

How would you like people to engage with your work?

No matter how isolated and introspective life in the studiomight be, it is difficult to imagine a painting ever beingfully realised without an understanding audience for it. Every-time a viewer stands before a painting, he or she creates itanew with their gaze and through their direct experience ofit. This is one reason why painting is fragile because after acertain point it always depends on someone else.

Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?

Paintings by the Argentinian artist Varda Caivano, the ReneDaniels exhibition at the Camden Arts Center in London a fewmonths ago, a viewing of Samuel Beckett’s “Film” which was partof the Moderns exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art

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and though not something seen but rather something read, a wonderfulshort story by Robert Walser called “The Walk”.

Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?

The paintings that I’m currently working on are always the most ex-citing thing for me. But other than that, one of my recent largerpaintings will be on show for the first time at the Irish Museum ofModern Art in May. I will also be showing some new drawings at theDrawing Now art fair in Paris this March and also in March a booklaunch for a recent publication about my work will take place atRubicon Gallery in Dublin.

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Passage2011, oil & enamel on linen & wood,52 x 48 cm

Flanking2012, coloured pencil on paper,32.5 x 25 cm

An Essay by Chris Ashley for theExhibition at Some Walls inOakland California, October-November,2010

But shadow enlivened by atoms of sunlightConstantly crisscrossed by sleepless flies.

Mute Objects of Expression by French poet and essayist, FrancisPonge (1899 – 1988)

Ponge’s lines, to which artist Patrick Michael Fitzgerald has re-ferred[1], describe and evoke the buzzing and movement of tiny andmicroscopic objects—shadow energized by and contrasting with almostimperceptible light, the random flight paths of non-stop insectsthat effortlessly draw a grid in the air without plan, the colorand atmosphere of a designated space and the activity within it—andbegin with a "But" that acts as a contradiction, an "instead of," aproposal that the objects in our world, even the smallest ones, arenot inconsequential. These objects and their changing, dynamic qual-ities matter even without our attention or presence, and can be seenand experienced if one is attentive and patient. The world aroundus, which we often think of as still, a theater turned off when wearen’t looking, is instead constantly in motion at the smallest andleast tangible level.

Ponge is associated with phenomenology, the philosophical movementfounded by Edmund Husserl in Germany in the early 20th century. Sim-ply, phenomenology is a philosophical method for the objective studyof topics typically regarded as subjective: consciousness and thecontent of conscious experiences such as perceptions, emotions, andjudgments. Although it seeks to be scientific, phenomenology doesnot study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychologyor neurology, but rather, through systematic reflection, to deter-mine the essential properties and structures of consciousness andconscious experience. Ponge’s poem attempts to bring a heightenedconscious sensitivity and awareness to the phenomena of nature:light, living things, motion, sight, and perception.

Fitzgerald’s art provides for the viewer a visual experience roughlyparallel to Ponge’s written example. His attunement to visual phe-nomena in his and our environment—phenomena in the natural, con-structed, social, and political world that we inhabit and navigateover time incidentally and accidentally, circumstantially and in-tentionally, in isolation and repetitively, whether consciously ornot—is filtered through and presented via the primary and elementalhandmade language of drawing and painting: line, shape, color, sur-

11Figure (November) 2012, oil & collage on wood panel, 142 x 110 cm (detail, see page 33)

face, gesture, layers, cuts, and collage. His response to nature isnot merely filtered through selection, reduction, abstraction, orinterpretation, but is instead the living and breathing experienceof seeing, acknowledging, using, and reusing, an experience that isnuanced and complicated, human and murky. The artist’s process re-quires immersion, reflection, dissection, isolation, reorganiza-tion, multiplication, expansion, repetition, variation,compression, and iteration. Fitzgerald’s art is the result of thisnon-linear process, and his observation, making, and presentation—perception, emotion, and judgment—ultimately provide for us flat,rectangular wall-hung objects on the surface of which are organizedrich and intricate, earned and determined images. Our job—a functionand a privilege of our sighted, conscious, and discerning existence—is first to objectively discover, confront, and engage with Fitzger-ald’s visual objects in an attempt to know his subjectivepresentation, and to then attempt to know our own subjective expe-rience. Through systematic observation and reflection we determinefirst the essential physical properties and structures in Fitzger-ald’s art, and secondly to hypothesize, reflect on, and confirm theartist’s and our consciousness and conscious experience. Ultimately,our objective contemplation of the subjective painted object makesus aware of our subjective experience, and more aware of the worldin which we live.

Fitzgerald’s images combine several image-making methods in singleworks, an approach that might sound premeditated, procedural, lay-ered, and dense but instead results in sensitive, intuitive, highly-conscious, and coherent images. Our experience of these layersrequires observation and cognition—the process of thought. For ex-ample, in his small painting Peso (verde), 2010, three differentpictorial approaches are combined and integrated. First, across thebackground surface a field of dabs and dribbles is obscured by thefoggy atomized cloud of white spray paint, on top of which a brushedgreen tree-like shape or figure reaches from the top to nearly thebottom. Adjacent to the left is collaged a strip of red-stained fab-ric. The foggy field is achieved via a mechanical process that ap-plies paint without touching the surface and reads as recessive,while the green figure is gestural, drawn, and constructed by touch-ing the surface on which it sits. The red fabric anchors or stabi-lizes the green figure, and is a real thing that reminds us thatthe painting is a physical object. In a strange way this red fabric,nubby and frayed along its top edge, counter-intuitively connectsand mediates the two other painted areas.

Another example of Fitzgerald’s approach and process is the drawingSpine (blue & red), also 2010. In this drawing scribbled gesturallines are between and on top of ruled lines, while areas of whitepaper contrast with colored areas; these areas are the actual drawnaspect here. But there are two more forms of drawing, each of whichin turn have two facets. First, two kinds of cutting, which are re-ally kinds of drawing, take place in Fitzgerald’s work: precise cutsinto and through the paper, analogous to the ruled lines, createshaped negative or see-through areas, while pieces of more free-hand-cut paper from existing drawings are collaged into the drawnfield. Secondly, there are two kinds of collage: the cut fragmentsof drawings just mentioned, and found objects applied to the sur-

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face, in this case one end or handle of a paper fan, a real thingas opposed to a drawn thing, placed vertically in the middle toppart of the entire drawing, and which itself contains see-throughcuts in a scroll pattern. Like phenomenologists, through objectiveobservation we gain insight into the factual aspects of Fitzgerald’sprocesses and products, which leads us to the possibility of as-sessing subjective aspects such as the artist’s motivation, desires,and decisions, and finally, with reflection, to the content of con-scious experiences such as perceptions, emotions, and judgments.

Recently a great deal of excellent and helpful writing aboutFitzgerald’s art has been published which examines and explains thephysical, aesthetic, and conceptual properties of his work, whilealso relating and reflecting the heightened conscious experiencehis paintings and drawings make possible. This writing is not onlyhelpful in describing and gaining insight into Fitzgerald’s work,but is also particularly useful here for briefly conveying variousapproaches to thinking about his paintings and drawings, and forsurveying the growing consensus of experience and opinion coalescingaround his art.

In a recent catalog essay Frank Lubbers, a curator and writer basedin Brussels, notes Fitzgerald’s associative imagery, and perhapsthe artist’s sources, saying, "There is some reminiscence of flow-ers, flowering trees, branches and twigs, either in spring, autumnor winter. His titles may give a hint, like Jardín (Garden) or Tree.In other works there might be a kind of untidy, but beautifullystructured grid or wire mesh laid over the painting, in which oddlyshaped forms are hung, like laundry, drying on a line. It can seemas if the wind took some nicely coloured irregularly torn rags andblew them into a rusty fence[2]"

London-based artist, critic, and curator Sherman Sam introduces thenotion of Masanobu Fukuoka’s idea of farming, which suggests, "howto not do too much, in fact how not to do anything at all, and, in-stead, work with nature. Hence no fertilizer, no ploughing, no her-bicides, no insecticide". Connecting this to the idea thatFitzgerald’s art has an organic, integrated, and human basis, Samcontinues, "Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, as an artist, really is afarmer. What is it to say that an artist is farmer? I mean he growsart; it is organic produce. Art today does not seem to be grown; itis manufactured, produced, industrially fabricated, even batteryfarmed in a few instances. Who grows art any longer? Just a smallhandful[3]."

Finally, New York poet, critic, and curator John Yau explicitlyidentifies the role of specific and homespun visual characteristicsand qualities found in works in Fitzgerald’s 2010 exhibition atGuest Room in Brussels when he writes, "Using a vocabulary that con-sists of a few vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines (a skeletalgeometry) juxtaposed against ragged and rounded shapes, and per-fectly cut, collaged circles, and pristine cut-out spaces, Fitzger-ald responds to something palpable in the world. The often-layeredspace, while alluding to nature, also conveys drawing as an accumu-lation of decisions, as well as a visual indication of time past.One both sees and sees into these drawings, with the layering reit-

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erated by the use of collage in the form of the perfectly roundcircles." Yau concludes that, "Fitzgerald’s vocabulary is basic—there is nothing elaborate or stylish about his lines and circles,rough and ragged shapes. He relies on colored pencils, ink, and col-lage—nothing fancy. And yet—and this is why Fitzgerald seems to meto be on the verge of becoming an important and singular artist—thework comes across as taut and fresh, brimming with an awareness thatthe act of seeing is a construction, at once fluid and disrupted."

Patrick Michael Fitzgerald’s art is rich and complicated, yet ac-cessible and based in perception and feeling. As Lubbers says, "Thereal great capacity of a painter is… to amaze us. This surprise ismostly in the imaginative, unusual and unexpected angle from whichthe painter sees reality, and by which he provides us with a freshand unexpected look at the world around us[5]."

Chris Ashley Oakland, CAOctober 2010

NOTES

[1] Fitzgerald, Patrick Michael. Crisscrossed. Le Roseau Pensant(blog). March 22, 2010. http://patrickmfitzgerald.blogspot.com/2010/03/crisscrossed.html.

[2] Lubbers, Frank. Patrick Michael Fitzgerald: A world of paint.Paintings and drawings by Patrick Michael Fitzgerald. RubiconGallery, Dublin, June 2010.http://patrickmichaelfitzgerald.net/?page_id=29.

[3] Sam, Sherman. Farming drawing: Patrick Michael Fitzgerald.Guest Room/Contemporary Art, Brussels. 2010. http://patrick-michaelfitzgerald.net/?page_id=29.

[4] Yau, John. Patrick Michael Fitzgerald Drawings. BrooklynRail. 2010. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2010/07/artseen/patrick-michael-fitzgerald-drawings.

[5] Ibid.

14 Cluster/Intervention 2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm (detail, see page, 69)

Patrick Michael Fitzgerald: a world of paintFrank Lubbers

When looking at paintings, particularly new ones, those yet undis-covered canvases that one has never seen before, there is always atemptation to look for similarities with works one already knows.Perhaps we are looking for safe ground; but how unfair that is and,in a sense, how lazy. On the other hand, looking with fresh and un-biased eyes, as if painting had just been invented in front of us,is extremely difficult, if not impossible. This is because one hasto erase, or at least postpone for the time being, everything oneknows about painting and its history as well. Nevertheless, tryingto navigate between the Scylla of the similarities, and the Charib-dis of the tabula rasa is what I am going to attempt to do here. Iam going to try to paint the paintings again, but this time in words.Or, to cite the American writer Henry James, in relation to the workof John Singer Sargent: “It is true that what the verbal artistwould like to do would be to find out the secret of the pictorial,to drink at the same fountain” (1).

What exactly do we see when we are looking at a painting? What dowe expect of a painting? When looking at the paintings of PatrickMichael Fitzgerald, what is happening in front of our eyes? Onemight call his paintings abstract, but that is not saying very much,as in fact every painting is abstract, in the sense that it consistsof lines and directions and shapes in all kinds of different formsand colours, and textures and rhythms, and repetitions and what haveyou. It is sometimes said that abstract art does not represent any-thing: but when it does not represent anything, how on earth can itbe something? At least it must represent some idea… Then again, asthe painter Maurice Denis wrote, as early as in 1890: “Remember thata painting, before being a battle horse, a naked woman or some an-ecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colours in a cer-tain assembled order” (my translation) (2).

Fitzgerald’s art inhabits the wonderful no-man’s-land between ab-straction and representation, where painting is able to show itsmost forceful characteristics. Or, as Roberta Smith put it in a re-cent article: “The Modernist insistence on the separation of repre-sentation and abstraction robbed painting of essential vitality.[...] As for representation and abstraction, historically and per-ceptually they have usually been inseparable. [...] Paintings - likeall art - tend to hold our attention through their abstract, or for-mal, energy. But even abstract paintings have representational qual-ities; the human brain cannot help but impart meaning to form.” (3)One only has to think of the strong imaginative impact of the well-known Rorschach tests in order to see the truth of this.

Some of Fitzgerald’s paintings look like collages, as if they con-

17Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 2008.

sist of torn pieces of coloured paper, or some multicoloured blobs.Others seem to be inspired by, or actually depict foliage. He usesbright colours versus dull colours. He applies the paint in thinlayers making almost-glazed surfaces, and then all of a suddenswitches to thick impasto, so that it looks as if slabs of paint areglued onto the support. Other surfaces show a wax-like velvety qual-ity, seducing us to caress them. Sometimes his paintings are highlycomplicated, and others extremely simple. There is some reminiscenceof flowers, flowering trees, branches and twigs, either in spring,autumn or winter. His titles may give a hint, like Jardín (Garden)or Tree. In other works there might be a kind of untidy, but beau-tifully structured grid or wire mesh laid over the painting, inwhich oddly shaped forms are hung, like laundry, drying on a line.It can seem as if the wind took some nicely coloured irregularlytorn rags and blew them into a rusty fence.

Fitzgerald’s paintings look flat, extending only in two directionson the surface. But although most paintings want to stay what theyare: two-dimensional, we can also find ones that have a minute,shallow depth, which gives the impression of three or four trans-parent paintings being hung in front of each other, reinforcing eachother (mostly in the Territoriesseries). Some of his paintings madein this way look like palimpsests, painting after painting laid overone another on the same surface. In Idle Time II the three-dimen-sionality is not suggested, not a painterly illusion: no, it isreal. The painting has become a box into which we can look, andwhere shadows play the part of, or pretend to be, colours.

A smudged painting generally means a failed painting. Not so withFitzgerald. He manages to make smudge into a fine quality by justadding some precise forms on top of the smudge, like circles inbright colours, some definite dots, or a clear line. His use ofcolour is absolutely cheeky and unpredictable. We can see tonalpaintings, with just a few hues in some muddy earth colours (forexample in Tilt and Beach). The holes, seemingly drilled at randomin the panel, are more like coloured dots than real openings orgaps, reminding us, of course, of Lucio Fontana, the master of thehole in the canvas. On the other hand Fitzgerald dares to use themost blatant primary colours squeezed right out of the tube (Spine).

Portraits can, in a sense, be found too: for example in Nidus, whichlooks like a balloon-formed face that is extending itself and pro-truding into the painting, as if it were some virus, slowly takingover the surface. In Carnival a greenish-grey grid is covered withhappily shaped banners in flying colours. When gestural marks ap-pear, appears, they are simply outright beautiful (Oker III), andthere are also some taut, but highly effective, crosshatchings hereand there, especially in his colour pencil drawings.

Patrick Michael Fitzgerald’s work has been compared with that ofseveral American painters, including Ellsworth Kelly and ClyffordStill (4). I can agree to a certain likeness with Kelly, as far ashis European period is concerned, but if there is a resemblance withhistorical precursors, I would prefer to mention Paul Sérusier, aFrench symbolist of the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th cen-tury (5). This comparison stands to Sérusier’s abstract works like

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Talisman, but also to more representational ones such as Breton Eveor Melancholy.

Fitzgerald’s paintings are, I believe, closer to the symbolism ofthe Nabis, to whom Bonnard belonged (one of the artist’sfavourites), and the Cloissonism or Synthetism of the painters ofPont Aven in French Brittany, than to 20th century colour fieldpainting, as some critics would have it. There is not only a formallikeness, but also a certain shared sensitivity and poetry with theNabis at work here. There is also a temptation to mention thepainters of the École de Paris, especially Jean Bazaine and SergePoliakoff, and to a lesser extent Roger Bissière and AlfredManessier. Deep down Fitzgerald is an entirely European artist,firmly rooted in mostly French painting of the 19th and 20th cen-tury. And if there is a semblance with American painting, it isstrongly mediated through these European influences.

I mentioned poetry: Fitzgerald is fond of the work of the, lesserknown 20th century French poet, Francis Ponge. And indeed, theartist’s work bears a close resemblance to Ponge’s poetry. They bothadmire the humble but meaningful world of things. Some of Ponge’sepic poems could easily be descriptions of Fitzgerald’s paintings.Take for example Bread:The crust on a loaf of French bread is a marvel, first off, becauseof the almost panoramic impression it gives, as although one hadthe Alps, the Taurus range, or even the Andean Cordillera right inthe palm of the hand. In that light, an amorphous belching mass wasslipped into the stellar oven on our behalf, and there while hard-ening, it moulded into valleys, ridges, foothills, rifts… And fromthen on, all those clearly articulated planes, all the wafer-thinslabs where light takes care to bank its rays - without a thoughtfor the disgraceful mush beneath the surface. That cold soggy sub-stratum, the doughy innards, consists of a sponge-like tissue; thereflowers, leaves are fused together at every bend like Siamese twins.When the bread grows stale, the flowers wither and shrink, they comeapart from one another and the whole thing goes to crumbs. But let’scut short here. For bread should be mouthed less as an object of re-spect than of consumption (6).In order to explain the discriminate relationships between his ownworks Fitzgerald borrows a term coined by the Austrian philosopherLudwig Wittgenstein: family resemblances (7). Things may be thoughtto be connected by one essential common feature, but in fact areconnected by a series of overlapping similarities, where no one sin-gle feature is common to all. For Fitzgerald, family resemblancesare to be found in groups of paintings dealing with the same subjectmatter (if one might describe it thus). The Lattice or Mesh paint-ings, which are characterised by a kind of network, have been giventhe family name Territories. And there is also the family: Spine;the Spine works resemble the Tree works in that a sort of spinalcord or branch-like form runs vertically across the paintings.

In addition to colour, form plays an important role in the organi-sation of a painting. Fitzgerald gives special attention to theproblems of form: “There will always be an irresolvable tension be-tween the different forms in a painting; surface as form, supportas form, figure and ground as form, colour as form etc… all jostling

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and in conflict with each other. And the speculative politics thatmight arise from this conflict is one of limits; limits which willdefine territories within which one can act with the greatest ofliberty” (8).

It may be true that the Kantian “thing in itself” (das Ding an sich)is, in the end, unknowable; but, by means of scientific and artisticpractices, we enable ourselves to approach it as closely as we can.Painting departs from the, not necessarily naïve, realistic, John-sonian presupposition (9), that there exists an outside world, in-dependent of our own existence and senses, about which we can talkand think on a shared level and can acquire knowledge of. Thus paint-ing, however non-representational or abstract it may be, is alwaysabout something, although it’s not always easy to explain what thatsomething is. It may directly refer to, or represent, some materialaspect, or facet of, the outside world, or it may epitomize someidea about the world, the psychological state of mind of thepainter, or his (10) relationship to reality itself.

In a sense an artist on the one hand gives us an image of the insideof his head, and on the other hand offers us an interpretation ofthe world outside. The world of things with its innumerable rela-tionships in three dimensions, its countless number of forms andshapes, and its endless range of colours and hues, is an indispen-sable resource for the painter. Translating this world of thingsinto his own language is the painter’s task. But apart from its re-lation or response to an outside world of things, a painting hasalso a relation to each of its precursors. The outside world may bea source of inspiration, but it’s the preceding work that leads theway to the next one. The awareness of this mechanism is an importantcondition for a coherent oeuvre. Fitzgerald’s work shows an acuteawareness of these essential prerequisites for noteworthy painting,and in a conversation with the painter Chris Ashley, he remarks: “Istill believe that painting can respond directly to the world ofthings, experience, and ‘reality’ on its own terms”. In the sameconversation he also adds “I prefer my work to lead me, so I try andfeel where it might be going and let it flow that way” (11).

In the end all painting, however new or unfamiliar it may appear,is rooted in history and can be traced back to some predecessor,even without the painter realising or knowing from what source heis drawing. The real great capacity of a painter is thus not to benew or original, but to amaze us. This surprise is mostly in theimaginative, unusual and unexpected angle from which the paintersees reality, and by which he provides us with a fresh and unexpectedlook at the world around us.

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NOTES

1) A wish he expressed in 1889. Cited in Sargent’s Venice by RichardOrmond and Warren Adelson, Yale University Press, 2006, p. 142.

2) Definition of Neo-Traditionalisme, published for the first timein the Revue Art et Critique, 30 August 1890. Original text: “Serappeler qu’un tableau, avant d’être un cheval de bataille, unefemme nue ou une quelconque anecdote, est essentiellement une sur-face plane recouverte de couleurs en un certain ordre assemblées.

3) Roberta Smith, The International Herald Tribune March 27-28 2010.

4) Enrique Juncosa, The Voice of Things, published in “PatrickMichael Fitzgerald, Paintings & Drawings”, 2007, Ayuntamiento dePamplona & Centre Culturel Irlandais.

5) Paul Sérusier, French symbolist painter (1863-1927).

6) Translated by Lee Fahnestock, from The Nature of Things (Le partipris des choses), Red Dust Books Inc. NY, 1995.

7) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell Pub-lishing Ltd. Malden USA, 1953, § 65 - § 71.

8) Quote from Patrick Michael Fitzgerald’s blog Le roseau pensant,July 2008, The question of form.

9) A quote from James Boswell’s The Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson: “Afterwe came out of the church, we stood talking for some time togetherof Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existenceof matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. Iobserved, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, itis impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity withwhich Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force againsta large stone, till he rebounded from it - ‘I refute it thus’”.

10) Nouns in English do not have grammatical gender and as this articleis about a male painter, I prefer the male form of the pronoun. Butfeel free to fill in the female form if you find it more appropriate.

11) Interview by e-mail December 2008-April 2009.

Frank Lubbers studied painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts inAmsterdam and philosophy at the Municipal University of Amsterdam.After having worked for a decade as a painter and art teacher, hebecame a curator. He has been curating for the Stedelijk Museum inAmsterdam and worked as a chief curator and deputy director for theVan Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Presently he is a freelance curator,art adviser and writer, based in Brussels.

© Frank Lubbers 2010This text was written for the publication Paintings and drawings byPatrick Michael Fitzgerald, published by Rubicon Gallery, Dublin,June 2010.(ISBN: 978-0-9554084-9-6)

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Farming drawing: Patrick Michael Fitzgeraldby Sherman Sam. A text for the exhibition“Drawings – Patrick Michael Fitzgerald” at Guest Room Contemporary Art, Brussels, 2010.

A Portuguese friend of mine, the painter Manuel Casal Aguiar fre-quently describes himself as a farmer. He does live on a small farm,and often lives off its produce, but this term "farmer" reallyrefers to his attitude as a painter. Manuel is being a bit disin-genuous, in that he is being humble rather than descriptively accu-rate. Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, as an artist, really is a farmer.What is it to say that an artist is farmer? I mean he grows art; itis organic produce. Art today does not seem to be grown; it is man-ufactured, produced, industrially fabricated, even battery farmedin a few instances. Who grows art any longer? Just a small handful.And their allotments are called "studios", or, for the less work-manly, "homes".

I think its obvious what I mean about an artist who is a farmer, butin Fitzgerald's case it is even more so given the appearance of more"natural" imagery recently. His earlier paintings possessed a moreopaque and concrete quality; the shallow visual depth and rectilin-ear composition created a feeling of a compressed space, with theodd eccentric dash or hole across its surface as punctuation; theresult being stoic and "withdrawn". Here a point of relation mightbe found in the monochromatic structures of Robert Ryman, but alsoin the American's experimental and investigative procedures. Despitethis description, a trait that is consistent throughout his work isa sense of "openness".

Since his residency at the Albers Foundation in Connecticut (2004),a different kind of imagery has emerged. Let's say that it’s evoca-tive of nature: forest-like, falling leaves-like, gravelled sur-face-like, floating island-like, tree-like, cluster-like. Nature in

23Spine (nocturnal) 2012, coloured pencil & collage on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm (detail, see page 66)

the past was hinted at in the sense of landscape, now it’s far morepalpable in the work itself. Of this period he says:

"I was looking for a much greater variety of form than before. I be-came fascinated by tree-like forms interrupted by architectural el-ements… the synthetic quality was also very important, for thisreason I emphasized the paper as support by positioning the mainimage off centre and so leaving a border or frame of blank paper ontwo sides. This seems to negate the inherent illusionistic spacetendency." 2

The architecture of white borders is no longer present; instead afew ruled diagonal lines have appeared here and there as composi-tional elements. A hardness to counter the organic perhaps, alsothere are crisp, collaged circles scattered all over. These two el-ements also provide a counterpoint to the scumbley, scribbley ges-tures that form clumps floating in space or clotting to a midpoint.Probably the most distinct trait of his recent drawings is a senseof massing, as if clumps of form were being drawn (no pun) together.Lines, circles, organic blobs, all cluster and hold towards a cen-tral vein, as if it were a close up of a bushy tree or some kind oforganic fauna.

Take note that I am not making the case for Fitzgerald being a land-scape or nature artist, rather I believe that he is growing things.All art has a nature, and in the case of drawing, it is line, form,shading, and so on, even filling in shapes as we did in colouringbooks when we were children. For the more adventurous, it includescollage, decoupage, and even just cutting holes and chopping bitsoff. Really, drawing is quite a simple act, maybe even primitive.We romanticise its purity and directness, but it is most like think-ing. Today, there are museums or kunsthalles for drawings, butrather than drawing's nature, they seem more interested in the ex-panded idea of drawing. Hence we have wall drawing, drawing as nar-rative (i.e. video), drawing as language (i.e. writing), evendrawing as methodical, time-consuming process (i.e. industry).Fitzgerald instead offers drawing as true to nature and by defini-tion; drawing which is true to itself. It is as simple as MasanobuFukuoka's idea of farming, how to not do too much, in fact how notto do anything at all, and, instead, work with nature. Hence no fer-tilizer, no ploughing, no herbicides, no insecticides:

"To get an idea of the perfection and abundance of nature," Fukuokasays, "take a walk into the forest sometime. There, the animals,tall trees and shrubs are living together in harmony. All of thiscame about without benefit of human ingenuity or intervention." 3

Look closely at his work and you see just that, nature, “drawingnature” - not drawing nature or nature drawing; but drawing's na-ture. In philosophy we could say that we are speaking of ontology,and in the past I have thought that this was part of his thinking,now I am not so sure. I think the reality of his approach is farmore organic. Pollock once said, "I am nature". In some waysFitzgerald is closer than Pollock, nature is not just catastrophicor explosive, it is daily, everywhere, all the time, even when man-made. Ultimately everything in the world comes from the world, un-

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less it's a bit of rock from outer space. The word in the end is"harmony", despite the seeming dissonant combinations of collage,the gestures or marks of coloured pencil, and the scumblings ofgraphite; I think Fitzgerald achieves a kind of "organicism" (forlack of a better word). He once described Wittgenstein as being "nota professional." 4, Fitzgerald is the same, he learns from the am-ateur attitude, and in doing so, he reaches for a harmony with na-ture.

Sherman SamLondon2010

Sherman Sam is an artist and writer based in London and Singapore.He is contributing editor to www.kultureflash.net and London corre-spondent for The Brooklyn Rail. His paintings and drawings were ex-hibited recently with The Rubicon Gallery in Dublin (2009) and TheSuburban in Chicago (2008).

NOTES

1. Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution, (NY, 2009; Fir. pub.1978). P.74-5.

2. Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, statement in Plan D, (Porto, 2005).P. 25.

3. Masanobu Fukuoka, quoted by Larry Korn,http://www.permaculture.com/node/140.

4. Patrick Michael Fitzgerald with Sean Shanahan, "Conversation" inThe Morning Hours, (Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, 2002). P. 8.

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Artist’s studio in Zalla (Vizcaya, Spain)

Paintings

And through the act ofpainting one feels one’sway with mind and body to-wards things, often refo-cusing and reshaping thecontours until paintingscollapse into themselves,and what we see in a “fin-ished” painting is evi-dence of this movement.

From an interview withChris Ashley, April 2009

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Swarms the Moth2010, oil & collage on linen,160 x 180 cm.Collection: Irish Museum ofModern Art

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Dispersal2012, oil & collage on canvas, 27 x 22 cm

Figure (November)2012, oil & collage on wood panel, 142 x 110 cm

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…in many ways it islike a constant recy-cling or re-forming,which mutates every-thing in such a waythat even works madebefore are re-evaluatedand then potentiallychange their status, orthe way they are com-prehended.

From an interview withChris Ashley, April2009

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Scene2012, oil & collage on linen, 60 x 50 cm

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K (Winter)2012, oil & collage on linen, 48 x 35 cm

Hurlevent (October evening)2011, oil & mixed media on canvas, 70 x 53 cm

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Stages (horizontal)2011, oil on linen, 160 x 180 cm

I hope that my paint-ings are very muchpaintings with their“ineluctable innerlogic”, but does thatmean they will neverreverberate in relationto a word, a cloud, themorning, a piece ofmusic or another paint-ing?

From an interview withSeán Shanahan, December2001/January 2002 (fromthe catalogue “Themorning hours”, pub-lished for an individ-ual exhibition atRubicon Gallery,Dublin, March 2002)

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Steps2012, oil & collage on canvas, 35 x 27 cm

Borrascoso2012, oil & collage on linen, 61 x 50.5 cm

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Stages2012, oil & collage on linen, 104 x 86 cm

Organs2012, oil & collage on linen, 82.5 x 72 cm

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…“teetering betweenbeing and nothing” isthe undeniable truth,at least in my work, ofthe essentially fragilenature of things andour own lives. I thinkthat many paintings(and this is how I seemy own) seem to have aforce that pulls thingsinto them – a centre ofgravity – where the pe-culiar fragile realityof a painting trans-forms everything intoits own mode of being.This is how I see apainting folding in onitself. It’s not aprocess and experiencethat moves away fromthe world, on the con-trary, it intensifiesit. Everyday experi-ences, things, places,always things close tohand and mundane; theseare the starting pointswhen I paint.

From an interview withChris Ashley, April2009

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Eventually2012, oil & collage on linen, 82 x 72 cm

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Event2012, oil & collage on linen, 55 x 46 cm

Consolidation2012, oil & collage on linen, 55 x 46 cm

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Conjunction2012, oil & collage on linen, 46 x 41 cm

Dissolution (tree/debris)0000. oil & collage on linen, 46 x 38 cm

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The Tree (deliberation)2010, oil & collage on linen, 128 x 106 cm

Dissolution2011, oil & collage on linen, 46 x 38 cm

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Passage2011, oil & enamel on linen & wood, 52 x 48 cm

Mass2012, oil on towel, 33 x 24 cm

Land2012, oil & collage on canvas, 27 x 22 cm

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Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 2008.

Drawings

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In the end, nature isinevitably experiencedthrough our representa-tions and syntheticconstructs whether itbe thought, painting,architecture, the cre-ation of gardens etc.That we are condemnedto “mere” representa-tions reflects the lim-its of our thinking,but I think it’s impor-tant to remember thatrepresentations are theresult of creativeprocesses and that canbe a very positivething. Painting is in-herently synthetic, butthat is the beauty ofit, and I still believethat painting can re-spond directly to theworld of things, expe-rience, and “reality”on its own terms.

From an interview withChris Ashley, April2009

Forming (garden)2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Viga (blue)2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Opening (night)2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Flanking2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Drifting/Sorting2012, coloured pencil & collage on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Painterly componentsgoverned by sensibility(I use this word withits explicit links toour all our senses). Ihave my own supply ofpainting components touse of course. Whetherthey are painted marks,collaged forms or mate-rials, drawn lines, ac-cumulations etc. theyall present themselvesin a painting as a kindof combined energy.There are gestures, butalso placements, idledeposits or very pre-cise positioning of el-ements. I think I canfinally understand thata painting is a figure– not just a figure ona ground but the paint-ing as a figure in itsown right, which isboth concealed and dis-closed in the processof making.

Quote from the artist’sblog, 31 May 2011

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Spreading (evening)2012, coloured pencil & collage on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Drifting (April)2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Piel/Forming2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Spine/Opening2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Viga/Divisions2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Bethany Drawing2004, coloured pencil on paper, 46 x 38 cm

Spreading2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Dissolution/Fracture2012, coloured pencil & collage on paper,32.5 x 25 cm

Mountain in my mind2012, coloured pencil & collage on paper,32.5 x 25 cm

Sorting/Accumulation2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Breathe2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Spine (nocturnal)2012, coloured pencil & collage on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Splayed2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

Land2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Sorting (green)2011, coloured pencil on paper, 38 x 30 cm

Cluster/Intervention2012, coloured pencil on paper, 32.5 x 25 cm

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Artist’s studio in Zalla (Vizcaya, Spain)

BiographySelected Bibliography

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Biography

Patrick Michael Fitzgerald (Ireland - 1965)

Education1984-87Chelsea School of Art, London – B.A. Fine Art (First Class).1987-88Chelsea School of Art, London – Master in Fine Art.

Solo Shows 2010Drawings, Guest Room/Contemporary Art, Brussels, Belgium.Bihotz, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.Some Walls, Oakland, California.2008Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris.2007Ciudadela de Pamplona - Pabellón de Mixtos, Pamplona, Spain.Museo Gustavo de Maeztu, Estella-Lizarra, Spain (with Eugenio Ortiz).2006Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast.2005Interceptación, Torre Ariz, Kultur Basauri, Vizcaya, Spain.2004Scattered occasions, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin.Cabinet, Galería Fernando Silio, Santander, Spain.2003Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, Ireland. Drawings (with Andrew Bick).2002The Morning Hours, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.Drawings, Lugar do Desenho - Júlio Resende Foundation, Porto, Portugal(With Andrew Bick).2001El Meridiano, Galería Bilkin, Bilbao, Spain.Galería Fernando Silió, Santander, Spain.2000Tiempo y Sombra, Galería Amasté Espacio de Arte, Bilbao, Spain.Municipal Gallery Zalla, Vizcaya, Spain.

Group exhibitions (Selection)2011Twenty, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland.2010Informal Relations, Indianapolis Museum Of Contemporary Art (curatedby Scott Grow), Indianapolis, U.S.A.The Lines of Interior, Trees, Outside, Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast,Ireland.Collecting the New, Recent Acquisitions to the IMMA Collection,Irish Museum Of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland.2009Alpha, Drei Raum für Gegenwartskunst, Cologne, Germany.

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Brussels Art Fair, Rubicon Gallery.ARCO, Madrid, with Rubicon Gallery.2008Engine room gallery, Belfast (with Ronnie Hughes, Richard Gorman &others).ARCO art fair Madrid with Rubicon Gallery.Art Brussels, with Rubicon Gallery.R.H.A. Annual exhibition, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin.2007Plata, Galería Magda Bellotti, Madrid.Painting in the noughties, Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny,Donegal, Ireland.In and out of geometry, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast.2006Airmail, Yanagisawa Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, (curated by Richard Gor-man).Drawings and Works on Paper from the IMMA Collection, Irish Museumof Modern Art, Dublin.Esencias, Colección Ernesto Ventós, Museo de la Pasion, Valladolid,Spain.Synecdoche, Patrick Michael Fitzgerald and Ronnie Hughes, RubiconGallery, Dublin.Pulse Miami, Rubicon Gallery.V National Painting Prize, Parliament of La Rioja, Spain.Summer show, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, Ireland.2005Plan D, Andrew Bick, Diana Cooper, Patrick M. Fitzgerald, ThomasNozkowski, Sherman Sam, Palecte Viscondes de Balsemão, Oporto, Por-tugal/Rubicon Gallery, Dublin & Model Arts Centre, Sligo, Ireland.ARCO 2005, Rubicon Gallery.ART Brussels, Rubicon Gallery.Art Cologne, Rubicon Gallery.2004VI Biennial de Estella, Museo Gustavo de Maeztu, Navarra, Spain.Recent Aquisitions, Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vito-ria, Spain.In the time of shaking, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.IV National Painting Prize, Parliament of La Rioja, Spain.C2, Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork. Ireland.Art Brussels 2004, Rubicon Gallery.Art Cologne 2004, Rubicon Gallery.FIAC, Paris 2004, Rubicon Gallery.Premio Angél de Pintura, MUVIM (Sala Parpalló), Valencia, Spain.2003Sight Mapping, Gallery Of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland.Sight Mapping, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao, Spain.ARCO 2003, Galería Bilkin.ARCO 2003, Galería Fernando Silío.ART Brussels, Rubicon Gallery.A Version of Sight Mapping, APT Galery - London.Drawn 2b Alive, Hales Gallery, London.L’Oréal Contemporary Art Prize. Centro Cultural Conde Duque deMadrid, Madrid, Spain.Photoptosis, Galería Bilkin, Bilbao, (Curated by Patrick M. Fitzger-ald).Colour Chart, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast.

Premio Ángel Painting Prize, Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, Cor-doba, Spain.Premio Caja de Extremadura, Plasencia, Spain.2002ART 2002, London.ARCO 2002 Madrid, Galería Fernando Silió.ART Brussels, Rubicon Gallery.Sight Mapping, Konsthallen-Bohuslans Museum, Uddevalla, Sweden.III National Painting Prize, Parliament of La Rioja/ Centro Marquésde San Nicolás de Briones (La Rioja) Spain.16th Zamora Biennial of Contemporary Art, Spain.2001ARCO 2001 Madrid, Hales Gallery, London.VIII Biennial Of Pamplona, Sala de Armas, Ciudadela de Pamplona,Spain.1996Summer Show, Hales Gallery, London.1995To whom it may concern, Anna Bornholt Gallery, London.1994Being There, Hales Gallery, London.1990Works on paper, Todd Gallery, London.1988Between Sculpture and Painting, London College of Furniture Gallery.Cartier Foundation Prize, Lynn Stern gallery, London.

CollectionsCollection of Contemporary Art, Pamplona city council, Spain.Olor visual - Ernesto Ventós Collection, Barcelona.Lugar do Desenho - Júlio Resende Foundation, Porto, Portugal.O.P.W. Irish State Collection.ARTIUM, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria, Spain.Collection Caja de Extremadura, Spain.Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, USA.Irish Museum Of Modern Art, Dublin.Fidelity investments.Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Co. Mayo, Ireland.C.C.A. Andratx, Mallorca.

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Selected Bibliography

2011Aidan Dunne, Why Twenty deserves its personal punch, The IrishTimes, 9 June.2010John Yau, Patrick Michael Fitzgerald - Drawings, The BrooklynRail, July-August.Claude Lorent, L’abstraction aux limites de la non figuration, LaLibre Belgique - Arts Libre, 2 July.Frank Lubbers, Patrick Michael Fitzgerald: A World of Paint, textfor the publication: Paintings and drawings by Patrick MichaelFitzgerald, published by Rubicon Gallery, Dublin.Sherman Sam, Farming drawing, text for an exhibition at GuestRoom/Contemporary Art, Brussels.Chris Ashley, Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, a text for the exhibi-tion by the artist at Some Walls in Oakland, California.Aidan Dunne, Speed, Energy and Intensity, Irish Times, 12 May.2009Noemi Smolik, Wir Basteln uns eine familie, pReviews, Artnet.Chris Ashley, Interview with Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, publishedon http://looksee.chrisashley.net/2008Aidan Dunne, ‘Art expanding to fill the historic space’, IrishTimes, 19 November.2007Enrique Juncosa, The voice of things, catalogue text, Ciudadela dePamplona/Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris. MayJuan Manuel Bonet, Pétalos negros sobre una rama, catálogo, MuseoGustavo de Maeztu, February2006Juan Manuel Bonet, 10 bienales, catalogue, Ayuntamiento de Pam-plona, June.Aidan Dunne, ‘Experiments with the science world’, Irish Times, 8March.2004Catalogue, Interceptación, with text by Sherman Sam, ‘Between, be-fore, after and maybe: The paintings of Patrick M. Fitzgerald’,March.Sherman Sam, ‘D is For’, Catalogue text for Plan D.Aidan Dunne, Painting in Ireland Now, CIRCA 109, Autumn 2004, pp.28-32.Aidan Dunne, ‘Face to face’, Irish Times, 8 September.Gabriel Rodriguez, El Diario Montañes, 12 March.Guillermo Balbona, El Diario Montañes,28 February.Aidan Dunne, ‘Pursuing a line’, Irish Times, 26 March.2003Aidan Dunne, Irish Times, 31 January.Catherine Daly, Irish Sunday Times, 26 January.Billy Leahy, In Dublin, Vol.28 No1.Graham Domke, Sight Mapping, Contemporary Magazine - Nº50.Iñaki Imaz, Sight Mapping, Zehar Nº51.

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2002Lisbeth Bonde, Sight Mapping, Modern Painters, Winter issue.Catalogue, The Morning Hours, Rubicon Gallery, (includes conversa-tion with Seán Shanahan), February.Aidan Dunne, ‘Breaking into morning’, Irish Times, 13 March.Catherine Daly, ‘The morning hours’, The Sunday Times, 17 March.Marianne Hartigan, Sunday Tribune, 10 March.Anne Iremonger, ‘Morning hours’, Dubliner, March.Patrick Michael Fitzgerald, Irish Architect, March.Sherman Sam, ‘Patrick M Fitzgerald’, Contemporary Magazine, May.Mark Gisbourne, ‘To See is to Behold’, Catalogue essay for SightMapping, August. 2001Catalogue, Galería Fernando Silió, “Patrick M. Fitzgerad", in-cludes text by Javier González de Durana, ‘Composing silence, mod-ulating time”. March.Alicia Fernández, ‘Geometria y reflexión’, El Correo, Territorios,7 March.Guillermo Balbona, ‘Patrick Fitzgerald’, El Diario Montañes, San-tander, March.Javier Urquijo, ‘Patrick Fitzgerald o la quietud’, El Mundo, LasArtes, 17 March.VIII Bienal de Pamplona, Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, Catalogue (textby Fernando Francés), October.2000Catalogue, Tiempo y sombra, Ediciones Amasté. (includes conversa-tion with Andrew Bick) March.Alicia Fernández, ‘Patrick M. Fitzgerald’, ABC, Cultural, Spain,11 March.Javier Urquijo, ‘La narrativa esencial’, Las Artes, El Mundo,Spain, 18 March.E.L. Patrick M. Fitzgerald, El Pais, Spain, 22 February.Marta E. Martín, ‘Variaciónes y tiempo’, Mugalari, Spain, 18March.

Radio & Television‘The View’, Radio Telefís Éireann, 5 March 2002

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Design: Antón Hurtado

Photography: David Solorzano & P.M.F.