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Transcript of The coercion of substance
Irish Arts Review
The coercion of substanceAuthor(s): Catherine MarshallSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 28, No. 3 (AUTUMN [SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2011]),pp. 58-59Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23049495 .
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AUTUMN 2011
EXHIBITION
The coercion of substance Form and colour in Sam Walsh's new series of paintings at Visual in Carlow, tantalise
but ultimately remain evocative, writes Catherine Marshall
The
exhibition of Sam Walsh's
post-2008 work 'The Coercion
of Substance' opens in Visual
in Carlow on 17 September after
which it will travel in January to the
Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda and,
later, to the Regional Cultural Centre
in Letterkenny. Like all of his previous
exhibitions this one will be antici
pated with keen interest by those who
are already familiar with his work,
especially as his intention in this body
of work is to do something he has
been working towards for some time;
he intends to represent what he
believes is the proper balance between
drawing and painting. That may
sound simple, as straightforward as
Walsh's overall aim in his art, which
is to present something profoundly
complex in the simplest possible way
without diminishing or reducing it to
the merely banal. Of course that's not
simple at all, especially for someone
like Walsh who respects and values
nuance more than most.
The debate between colore (paint
ing) and disegno (drawing) is as old as Michelangelo and Leonardo and
has occupied generations of artists
ever since. For many this comes down
to presenting each one separately, the
drawing carrying the brunt of the idea
and the painting largely taking
responsibility for the emotional
aspects of the work. While Walsh
appears to agree with this he doesn't
necessarily equate the colder more
cerebral aspect of the work, however
important that might be, with draw
ing. In his artist's statement to accom
pany the exhibition he refers to 'the
poetry of drawing' and 'the prose of
painting' (my italics). This is a rever
sal of the norm which is to consider 2
58 IRISH ARTS REVIEW I AUTUMN 2011
1 SAM WALSH b. 1951 2 CLOONLARA XVI MERRIONII2010 acrylic/oil 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas on canvas 50x50cm 150x150cm
the drawing as the bare structural
skeleton of a work, while the lyricism
resides in the colour and brushwork.
Perhaps the key here is that no matter
what stimulus prompted a particular
painting or drawing, it is that under
lying structure of the narrative, object
or landscape that suggests poetry to
Sam Walsh. He has always loved
The coercion of substance
Catherine Marshall
1 SAM WALSH b. 1951 MERRIONII2010 acrylic/oil on canvas 50x50cm
2 CLOONLARA XVI 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas 150x150cm
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 09:32:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
up in glazes so that the viewer, who is
prepared to work for his/her pleasure,
can look into the dark mass where
depth and movement slowly reveal
themselves and that engages in a tense
dialogue with more static areas beside
or around it. Revealingly he does his
thinking through drawing and has
identified 'a feeling of arrogance
all the more rewarding because it has
no fixed outcomes. The interplay of
both disciplines on the same canvases
in this exhibition calls attention to
two ways of being, thinking and expe
riencing that are about the structures
of existence itself.
As Gemma Tipton points out in her
perceptive essay in the catalogue,
Walsh's mission is to encourage new
ways of seeing. The forms that
intrude into his colour fields, or
appear to be pushed out of them,
evoke a myriad of familiar objects but
the clues they contain never add up to
a graspable phenomenon. Instead they
insinuate themselves into our brains,
tantalising but not revealing. The
same is true of the colours they bear.
'A colour remembered is more emo
tive and more accurate like a scent or
a sound', he says in his statement.
Everything in these chimeric images,
created over the past four years, some
of them while he was a resident at the
famous Albers Foundation in New
NO MATTER WHAT STIMULUS PROMPTED A PARTICULAR PAINTING OR DRAWING, IT IS THAT UNDERLYING STRUCTURE OF THE NARRATIVE, OBJECT OR LANDSCAPE THAT SUGGESTS POETRY TO SAM WALSH
drawing and was a founder member
of the National Contemporary
Drawing Collection at Limerick City
Gallery. He regularly draws in black,
usually charcoal, ink or conte crayon,
but even when he paints a flat black
on to a canvas, as in Ambit 1, 2001
he makes it work in a way that flat
colour cannot usually do. He builds it
3 ARMOR VIII 2009 acrylic/oil on canvas 150x150cm
U PETROCOREII 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas 100x100cm
5 WOBURN III 2010 acrylic/oil on canvas 150X150CM
about painting' ('The Boundaries of
Abstraction'interview with Brian
McAvera, IAR, Winter 2007, p 86),
perhaps because he already knows
from his drawing what he wants the
painting to look like and is nervous
that it may not work. The drawing on
the other hand comes from the
exploratory, freer side of his brain,
York, is about the subtle glimpses of
things known and understood or seen
and not understood but full of poten
tial, if we, as responsible viewers, are
wise enough to respond to the invita
tion they offer. ■
Sam Walsh 'The Coercion of Substance' Visual, Carlow, 17 September 2011 - 6 January 2012.
Catherine Marshall is Co-Editor, of Vol V, Irish Art and Architecture, Royal Irish Academy (forthcoming).
AUTUMN 2011 I IRISH ARTS REVIEW 59
3 ARMOR VIII 2009 acrylic/oil on canvas 150x150cm
U PETROCOREII 2011 acrylic/ oil on canvas 100x100cm
5 WOBURN III 2010 acrylic/oil on canvas 150X150CM
This content downloaded from 91.229.248.152 on Fri, 13 Jun 2014 09:32:33 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions