Wor ld Tour Part 2e x h i b i t i o n

GORRY GALLERY

Requests the pleasure of your companyat the Private View

of an Exhibition of Paintings

on Sunday 1st November 2015Wine Reception at 3.00pm

This Exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment. Also on the Friday 30th and Saturday 31st October from 11.30am to 5.30pm.

Exhibition continues until 14 November 2015.

Wor ld Tour Part 2

GORRY GALLERY

in conjunction with

Michael FlanaganT: 028 4481 2921M: 07741 261107E: info@mfart.co

Gorry Gallery20 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2Tel/Fax: +353 (0) 1 679 5319

www.gorrygallery.ie

Introduction to Part One of the Tour

Neil Shawcross RHA. RUA

Neil Shawcross is and has been an avid collector of all sorts of design and advertising material for the past twenty to thirty years, including packaging, tins, wine bottles, Americana, kitchenalia, museum and exhibition posters, etc. He has often painted series of works depicting some of his interests, i.e. Penguin Book Covers or Wine and other Bottles. Some twenty years ago he decided, as a bit of fun, to over-paint some of his posters rather than paint images of them. Encouraged by many friends he has continued to produce these unique over painted works (approx 100) and it is with great pride that I present part one of Shawcross’s World Tour. This is the first time that the series has been made available to the public.

Posters included images by Hockney, Picasso, Rembrandt and many others - all superimposed by Neil’s art work with written details of an exhibition or museum’s promotional material left visible to the viewer. These are full blown paintings in (mostly) acrylic with a deliberate bold Shawcross signature to each one which makes them unique to this series. There are a few exceptional Linotypes included.

Very much considered an Irish artist, Neil was born in Lancashire in 1940. He studied art at Bolton College of Art from 1955 to 1958 and Lancaster College of Art from 1958 to 1960 before moving to Belfast in 1962 to take up a post to Lecture at Belfast College of Art where he continued to teach until his retirement in 2004. At 75 he still creates works in his studio on a daily basis. His work can be found in all major public and private collections in Ireland and in numerous other collections around the world.

Michael Flanagan June 2015

A High Profile, Low Budget World Tour

Whether it is the urge to paint a moustache on the face of the Mona Lisa or to overwrite an image or text on a wall with a social or political comment, it would seem that the desire to transform runs deep within the human psyche. In 1919 Marcel Duchamp did just that to Leonardo’s beauty and added LHOOQ (a pun in French on her sexual desire) to a postcard version. And of course Ciaran Carson has reminded us of the obsessive nature of wall writing ‘At times it seems that every inch of Belfast has been written on, erased and written on again…’. Appropriation and transformation has a long, purposeful and indeed fertile history in the visual arts. There is the deployment of newspaper cuttings in the early work of Picasso and the development of collage. In more recent times Andy Warhol and others appropriated imagery from the world of commerce and consumerism. Warhol’s ‘One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate)’ sold at Sotheby’s this year for £20 million. Actual dollar bills are over painted and transformed by Pakistani artist Murad Khan Mumtaz. To appropriate or adopt and indeed transform something that is readily available has then an established tradition which may be iconoclastic and challenging as well humorous and parodic. Neil Shawcross, in this collection of works, appropriates and transforms museum/art gallery posters but is a benign rather than a sinister iconoclast. He acquires posters (often from friends) which are multiple reproductions advertising/promoting an exhibition and

over-paints them to become an original work of art by him, while retaining the name of the host gallery of the original exhibition. The dates of his paintings do not always coincide with the dates on the posters. Consequently the art gallery poster which is a product of the world of merchandising is transformed into a unique art enterprise. This compelling aspect of his art practice started over twenty years ago with his over-painting of a poster of a Howard Hodgkin exhibition in Edinburgh and is still in periodic development (some 100 to date). As such this selection of paintings forms a mini retrospective of his stylistic development as an artist - the shift to a looser use of paint and thinner washes; the effective registration of ‘off key’ line against colour; from a delight in the decorative and figurative to the subtle powers of the semi-abstract and the cross fertilization of pictorial and painterly concerns. Indeed when exhibited ensemble these image and text works become much more than the sum of their individual parts - their visual impact is turbo-charged. The artist’s main subjects are covered with the exception of his portrait series where increased scale is important to retain - some nude paintings, the Jazz works but mostly still lives. There is the hedonistic and playful ‘Dancing Nude’ (Cat No. 27). His interest in multiple image presentation may be detected in ‘6 Goblets’ (Cat No. 22) while the European tradition which offered such rich early artistic nourishment to him may be enjoyed in ‘Fruit and Flowers’ (Cat No. 46) and ‘Vase’ (Cat No. 7).

He has always experimented with the fertile interactions of the layering of paint - ratio of translucency to opaqueness; the affective surfacing of under-painting, resisting occlusion. This is perhaps at its most subtle and occular in ‘Red Jazz’ (Cat No 44). Indeed in some works the original poster image is allowed to break through in places, activating/energising the over-painting and the texts naming the museums and galleries vary in scale producing different dynamic hybrids of text and image. Shawcross loves travelling particularly in North America and this world tour, both fictitious and authentic embraces local and global outreach, without leaving the studio. Perhaps a ‘certificate of authenticity’ should be offered to the sceptical buyer - but please no fake dollars accepted!

Liam KellyOctober 2015 ©

Liam Kelly is Emeritus Professor of Irish Visual Culture at the School of Art and Design, University of Ulster, Belfast, N.Ireland. His publications include ‘Thinking Long – Contemporary Art in the North of Ireland’; ‘The City as Art’ (ed.), ‘Art and The Disembodied Eye’ and ‘The School of Art and Design, Belfast 1960-2009’.From 1986 -1992 he was Director of the Orpheus Gallery, Belfast and from 1996 -1999 Director of the Orchard Gallery, Derry. Currently he is Chair of the International Association of Art Critic’s Commission on Censorship and Freedom of Expression.

1. Ref 71

Jug & Basin VI71 x 48cm

2. Ref 26

Wine Bottle & Fruit76 x 51cm

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Pair of Cups and Saucers69 x 87cm

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Decanter II76 x 50cm

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Red Jug of Flowers67 x 50cm

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Yellow Ladder Back Chair91 x 61cm

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Vase of Flowers95 x 64cm

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Cup & Saucer V91 x 60cm

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Kitchen Armchair105 x 76cm

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Flask102 x 61cm

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Radio74 x 77cm

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Nina Tomatoes76 x 51cm

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Chablis & Fruit76 x 97cm

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Setting the Table66 x 48cm

Illustrated front cover of catalogue & printed invitation

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Pink & Silver Jazz71 x 64cm

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Black Nude63 x 85cm

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Vase of Poppies II 99 x 61cm

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Jug & Basin IV81 x 94cm

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Self Portrait76 x 51cm

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Yellow Ladder Back Chair II91 x 61cm

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4 Goblets98 x 68cm

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6 Goblets104 x 76cm

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Musical Chair X94 x 61cm

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Tall Red Kettle92 x 67cm

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Musical Chair VIII76 x 50cm

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Dick Tracy91 x 61cm

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Dancing Nude76 x 51cm

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Musical Chair XI63 x 40cm

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Violin & Bow66 x 46cm

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Telephone46 x 61cm

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Reclining Nude76 x 86cm

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Bowl of Fruit III42 x 30cm

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Dining Chair59 x 42cm

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Jug & Basin X58 x 70cm

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Cabaret66 x 69cm

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Wine, Fruit & Goblet60 x 80cm

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Poppies in Vase III60 x 42cm

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Musical Chair VII42 x 30cm

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Acqua Panna46 x 61cm

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Jug & Basin IX59 x 42cm

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Silver Jazz II60 x 43cm

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Bowl of Fruit II71 x 51cm

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Jug & Basin VII66 x 48cm

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Red Jazz51 x 42cm

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The Trial73 x 48cm

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Fruit and Flowers60 x 64cm

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The Castle76 x 56cm

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George Orwell Nineteen Eighty Four76 x 56cm

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Teacup & Saucer IV68 x 48cm

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Crouching Nude II64 x 69cm

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Green Teaspoon II66 x 48cm

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Purple Jazz II59 x 42cm

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Jug & Basin VIII66 x 74cm

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Red House II59 x 42cm

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Black & Red Jazz71 x 50cm

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Red Kettle II57 x 42cm

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Six Kozo Chairs66 x 61cm

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Jug & Basin XI 59 x 42cm

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Jug & Basin V 61 x 46cm

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Musical Chair IX76 x 51cm

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Vase of Poppies IV94 x 61cm