Damien Flood: Interior Sun
Opening Reception: Thurs 16 Jan, 6:00 - 8:00pm
Exhibition Dates: 16 Jan - 22 Feb 2014
Green On Red Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of new work, Interior Sun, by Irish artist Damien Flood on Thursday, January 16, 2014.
In this body of work called Interior Sun the artist continues to intrigue and surprise with paintings that rely heavily on the quality and the direction and the brevity of the painted line, among other things. The same line varies between having descriptive, diagrammatic or even ideogrammatic powers in a witty and confident turn to an increasingly light touch. It also does not add up or conclude. Reminiscent of an earlier work called Red Line, paintings like Pipe and String charm the viewer with their whimsical and contradictory logic.
Repeatedly his compositions defy easy legibility. They hover, in fact, on the lip of being gauche or failing outright. The tension is sharpened by the lack of definition or clear description. Space is inchoate and ambiguous, a fact which only asserts and intensifies the experience of the painted surface. Flood invents a manner of painting and composing that is out on its own. To say that it is a new abstraction that is not hidebound is an understatement. Look at the jostle of marks and strokes and lines in Slouch or how littleBather, as a title, tells us about the “ scene “ depicted. There is no scene. A presence is the most generous description of what is held in suspension between two flag-like, typically muted and mustard-coloured flat panels, one above, one below, both flying from the same black line or pole.
It has been said that : “ These works challenge how the viewer is placed within the psychological space of the painting. Interchanging notions of placement, i.e grounded, floating, underground, viewing from inner-consciousness to outer-consciousness to outer space displace the viewer and instil an otherworldly mood within them. “
Flood marries abstraction with representation, elegant phrases with mute absence, meaning with nonsense, questions with more questions. Colour is utilized in both harmony and discord, the image can be tantalizingly comprehensible and frustratingly unreadable. As viewers we are pitched into a gladiatorial arena where the techniques of painting insist on their own importance while supporting their ability to offer fictional depiction. It is testament to the fluency and multilingualism of Flood’s skill that in successive bodies of work he is able to keep the field of engagement so open. ( Patrick Murphy, Director, RHA )
The palette remains predominately earthen and dun with occasional flourescent accents of turquoise or vivid pink. Each mark feels more daring and honest and increasingly independent or other-worldly. There is an unpredictability and courage here that is nerve-tingling and alive.
For an expansion of these ideas and more information you may attend a conversation between the artist and James Merrigan in Green On Red Gallery on 12 February in the gallery at 7pm. Flood’s work has recently been exhibited in curated exhibitions in the Arthur Boskamp Foundation, Germany, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy, Domo Baal Gallery, London.